Broken Boy Soldier
by Ergott
Summary: Sequel to Steady As She Goes. One night with an alluring stranger shattered Doctor Harleen Quinzel’s well-ordered life, and now she’s scrambling to put the pieces back together while dealing with the madman known as The Joker.
1. Broken Boy Soldier

Rating: T (PG-13) for mental games, violence, and murder.

Summary: Sequel to Steady As She Goes. One night with an alluring stranger shattered Doctor Harleen Quinzel's well-ordered life, and now she's scrambling to put the pieces back together while dealing with the madman known as The Joker.

Quick Notes: This story treads a fine line between being romantic and being disturbing; considering who the subjects are, I find that appropriate. This _is_ a romance, but a twisted and non-traditional one.

Broken Boy Soldier relies heavily on the events that took place in Steady As She Goes. If you have not already read that, I would recommend doing so, because this one won't make nearly as much sense otherwise.

MCU is, I believe, short for Major Crimes Unit. That's what Gordon called his department in the movies, anyway.

Again, my Joker mostly follows Heath Ledger's example, but he does have some elements of Mark Hamill's Joker.

And, finally, this story has been broken up into four parts for your reading convenience.

**

* * *

Broken Boy Soldier**

"_I'm child, and man, then child again._

_The boy never gets older."_

The trouble started on a Tuesday. Harleen should have known it would; Tuesdays had never been good for her. She had received her first rejection letter on a Tuesday, her parents had died on a Tuesday, and the list went on. While most people bemoaned the first day of the workweek, she dreaded the second.

"Please, Joan, I'm begging you!" Harleen pleaded desperately as the two doctors walked toward Joan Leland's office.

"I'm sorry, Harleen," the older woman sighed, "but it's simply out of the question." She ushered the blonde woman into her office. "Under any other circumstances, I would review the case and take your request into consideration, but…"

"The board of directors won't let you," Harleen finished bitterly.

Joan rubbed her temples as she sat behind her large desk. "You have to understand how this looks to them."

Harleen sat down, absently playing with a pen that had been lying on Doctor Leland's desk. "I _do_ understand that, but he's-"

"I know this is hard," Joan interrupted, "but you're the first doctor that he's stayed with for more than a few days."

"It's been two months," Harleen replied forcefully, "and we haven't made any progress!" She began to roll the pen between her fingers. "Please-"

"Harleen," Joan interrupted once more, a weary note lacing her voice.

"Listen to me, Joan!" Doctor Quinzel nearly shouted, a deep, almost hysterical note in her voice. "You have to get him off my roster," she was starting to lose herself in blind panic, not even noticing when she stabbed Doctor Leland's pen into the surface of the wooden desk. "I can't see him any more!"

Joan quickly came to Harleen's side, looking up into the frightened blue eyes. "Has he threatened you?" she asked quietly. "You know we have a strict policy about that; even the board wouldn't be able to force you to continue working with him if he's threatened you."

"If only it was something that simple," Harleen moaned. "No, he hasn't threatened me, not overtly. It's just…" she paused struggling for the right words. "When I'm in that room with him, I can't tell who the doctor is anymore, Harleen or The Joker." She folded in on herself for a moment, shaking. "He gets inside you, Joan. Sometimes he'll be as gentlemanly as you please, and other times he'll put the most horrible ideas into your mind and you'll begin to wonder if you're not being tainted with his lunacy."

Doctor Leland made soothing noises, holding Harleen about the shoulders for support.

"He makes me feel dirty and alive, all at once," the blonde continued to tremble. "I'm on the verge of a nervous breakdown, Joan. I can't continue to be his doctor if you want to keep me on the employed side of Arkham."

Joan patted her shoulder affectionately, and stood up. "It's not the best grounds for removal in this situation, but the fact that you didn't lie to me, when saying you'd been threatened would have been the easiest way to get rid of this patient, makes me trust you, Harleen. If you say you can't handle him anymore, then I'll believe you." She slipped her suit jacket on, and grabbed her briefcase. "I can't promise that I'll be able to change the board's opinion on this, but I'll see what I can do." And with that, Harleen was left alone in her superior's office.

Slowly, a sense of relief began to flood her. After two mentally warping months of seeing The Joker three hours a day, five days a week, she might actually be free.

But she should have known that even if something went well on a Tuesday, its eventual consequences would have to be disastrous.

* * *

The Joker sat in his bolted-down chair, seeming to lounge across a surface that hadn't been designed for comfort. He never appeared uncomfortable, Harleen noted confusedly, even when he'd gotten into fights with other patients and had sustained some nasty injuries. He always looked so relaxed, as though he hadn't a care in the world. But then, maybe he _didn't_ have a care in the world. The more she worked with him, the more Harleen began to feel that there were very few things The Joker held close to himself, the foremost being chaos. He considered his followers expendable and viewed most people as pawns, so he didn't seem to have any meaningful relationships with anyone.

Except for her.

He'd had fun warping his doctors, sending them howling back to their wards needing treatment for the very dysfunctions that they had been considered specialists in. But her, he had only played with for two months. He had poked and prodded Harleen, planted terrible thoughts into her mind, but he hadn't tried to break her. Or perhaps he _was_ trying to break her, but he was taking the slow approach. Either way, it had to end. Harleen was done playing. Joan had come through for her, pulling enough strings with the board to get The Joker's case reassigned. A replacement doctor had already been picked out; Harleen was just covering this last session.

She had wanted the chance to say goodbye.

And she hated herself for that. The Joker had played some pretty twisted mind games with her, had left her logic warped for hours at a time after their meetings but, in the end, he was still her Mr. J. Still that enigmatic and compelling man that she'd met at the Halloween party. Somewhere, amidst all the lies and confusion, he had grown to be a familiar figure in her life.

"Why the long face, Doc?" The Joker spoke up, jerking Harleen from her thoughts.

She sat down stiffly, placing her briefcase at her feet. When she finally looked up, The Joker had her pinned with his darkly mesmerizing eyes. She quickly looked away; she couldn't handle that stare right now. "The board says you and I aren't making any progress," Harleen said calmly, glad now that she'd practiced the line on her way to the observation room. "They're reassigning your case."

"You get a gold star for effort, Harley, but a demerit for form," The Joker shook his head. "That lie was just _sloppy_." His paint-free face pulled into a wicked smile, his scars standing out boldly. "Is the honeymoon over already, sweetheart?"

"Your new doctor is named Daniel Marsch," she ignored his baiting. "I haven't met him yet, but he's very capable from what I've heard. Promise me you'll cooperate with him."

The Joker quirked an eyebrow mockingly, "I'm always cooperative."

"Yes, but only after you've caused trouble," Harleen frowned. "And only if it fits into your scheme."

"I don't scheme," he said, a vague frown furrowing his brow. "Scheming would imply a desired sequence of events. I just like to shake things up," he shrugged, lazily throwing an arm over the back of his chair. "I don't care _how_ it happens, just so long as it _happens_."

"Well, feel free to discuss that with Doctor Marsch," Harleen rubbed her temples tiredly. "I just came-"

"To say goodbye?" The Joker offered mockingly. "If you're going to miss me so much, then why are you running away? We have fun, don't we? Why end the game so soon?"

"Because this is my career, not a game," she hissed. "And you're really starting to-" _get to me_, she left the final part unsaid. It wasn't wise to show someone like The Joker how much power he really had.

Judging by the look on his face, however, he already knew. Slowly he leaned forward, until he was only inches from her face, the cold metal table between them. "There are four stages to all things in life, Harl: denial, avoidance, acceptance, and then change. What stage are you in?"

"I've _accepted_ that I can't handle your case, and soon you'll be _changing_ doctors," she hissed once more, backing away from him.

"Really?" he rumbled. "Because that sounds like denial and avoidance to me." His tone was pleasant, but there was that ever-present needling quality to it, like he knew he could get her to see his point of view and wouldn't stop bothering her until he had succeeded.

"What do you want from me, Joker?" she snapped, reaching the end of her tether. This last session had been a bad idea; she should have known better than to confront him.

"_You_?" he snapped back, showing a rare hint of temper. "I don't want anything from _you_, Doctor Quinzel. I'm waiting to see if Harley Quinn can come out to play."

"She never really existed," Harleen sighed, shaking her head. "She was just a figment of your imagination."

"You'd like to think that, wouldn't you?" The Joker licked his lips. "But you and I both know that you were the one who came to me. You played my games willingly; you became what you were meant to be." His voice deepened until it was nearly a growl, "It wasn't Harleen Quinzel who kissed me that night."

"I didn't know who you were!" she protested hotly.

"But you trusted what I had to say?" he asked with a laugh. "Hide all you want, _Doctor_ _Quinzel_, but sooner or later you'll have to come to terms with the fact that _you're_ the one who dreamt up Harley." He shrugged, an almost innocent look in his eyes, "I just gave her a name."

Harleen wanted to cover her ears and run from the room. It was easier to believe that The Joker was responsible for her supposed alter ego. She didn't want to entertain thoughts that she had some sort of split personality; she'd just had a wild night at a party, and she would eventually forget about it.

"And, try though you might," The Joker's rough voice was purring now, "you won't be able to suppress her forever." He leaned back slightly, gesturing with his hands. "Go ahead and bury her in a shadowy corner of your mind, try wrapping her in that gentle soul of yours, Harleen; I dare you. It will only make it sweeter when Harley Quinn comes screaming to the surface."

She stood abruptly, grabbing her briefcase. "It will never happen," she replied levelly, turning to the door.

"We'll see," he laughed after her retreating form.

She opened the door, but paused halfway through it, resisting the temptation to take one last look at him. He was like a narcotic that way: poisoning her very being with everything that he did, and yet he was dangerously addictive. Quietly, she murmured, "Goodbye, Mr. J."

"See you 'round, sugar lips," he promised ominously.

* * *

A handful of days passed in pure bliss, each day a little more relaxed than the one before it. Slowly, bit-by-bit, Harleen could feel herself returning, could feel her normal thoughts and ideas sweeping away the mess that The Joker had left in her mind. And yet…

Her evenings had fallen into a strange pattern. Sometimes, late at night, she would jerk awake in a cold sweat, haunted by the phantom memory of demanding lips and a chilling laugh. On those occasions she had crawled into her closet until she'd found the box that she had shoved her harlequin costume into. With shaking hands she had gripped the dual-colored fabric, wrapping it around herself as she sat on the floor, reminiscing. Sometimes she breathed in the smells clinging to the red and black clothes, letting the scents of sugar, sweat, and The Joker invade her; sometimes she thought about how he had held her, back to front, teasing her senses until that kiss they had shared seemed inevitable; and sometimes she thought about that illusive and dangerous sort of fun that Mr. J had tried to introduce her to, how she had let go of everything society expected of her and had thrilled in the face of absolute freedom. How, for those few short minutes, Harley Quinn had truly _lived_. Inevitably, she would wake up on her closet floor the next morning, muscles aching from not sleeping in a bed, as a deep sense of personal weakness flooded her. She had gotten away from The Joker's influence, so why did she continue to cling to reminders of him and what he inspired in her?

Her days were blissful, but her nights were hellish. She was more relaxed than ever, and yet deep, purple shadows bruised the skin under her eyes. Harleen felt like a walking contradiction, or like a recovering addict: she knew she was doing the right thing by quitting—making the wise and healthy choice—but deep down she couldn't help the longing that burned inside her for that familiar rush. She had found herself walking to the observation room on more than one occasion, her mind having switched to an outdated autopilot; usually she managed to catch herself before she had even made it halfway there, scurrying back to her office in shame or disappointment, although there had been a few close calls. On one very notable occasion, Harleen had made it all the way to the observation room before she'd noticed where her wayward feet had led her and, like a child being pulled in two different directions, she had stood in the hallway, unsure of what to do. The majority of her had wanted to turn and run, but small part of her had wanted to press her ear against the door, to listen for a hint of Mr. J's rumbling voice.

She had always thought that admitting to a problem was the hardest part, but Harleen was now beginning to suspect that, when it came to The Joker at least, the hardest part was getting away. She had achieved physical distance, and yet he still plagued her thoughts.

Her days began to fall into rigid routines and she threw herself into her work. With such a tightly set schedule, she knew she wouldn't have time to think about him and, maybe, given enough time, she would be able to wipe him from her mind without having to exhaust herself. The shadows under her eyes darkened, but she was more than willing to sacrifice vanity for peace of mind.

It was two weeks, to the very day, since Harleen had managed to get rid of The Joker's case—and felt as though her thoughts were finally moving in the right direction—when a knock sounded at her office door. If she had known who stood at the other side she wouldn't have offered a cheerful, "Come in!" If she had known that her traditional Tuesday bad luck was about to catch up to her, she would have pretended to be out to lunch.

"Doctor Quinzel?" Daniel Marsch stood in her doorway, looking tired but pleasant. He was a fit young man in his early thirties who bore an intriguing likeness to Bruce Wayne. Daniel was bit stockier than the angular billionaire, however, and his hair was closer to a cinnamon color. Overall, he was an attractive man, but Harleen couldn't help shuddering at the too-serious air he carried about himself.

"Please, come in." She waved to one of the empty chairs across from her desk, "Have a seat." Harleen almost cringed when the man set himself in a plush chair, looking so very stiff and brittle. Had she really gotten so used to lazier postures? "So, what can I do for you?"

"I meant to meet with you sooner, Doctor Quinzel," Daniel cleared his throat nervously. "I wanted to go over your notes on this case," he held up The Joker's file, "if that's all right with you. I was curious as to whether you had noted any eccentricities that the patient exhibited."

Harleen quirked an eyebrow. "The Joker is a roiling mass of eccentricities, Doctor Marsch; you'll have to be more specific than that."

He flushed under her amused stare. "Well, like behavioral eccentricities, for a start," he clarified, taking out his notes. "I know I've only been working with The Joker for a short while, but his behavior has seemed very inconsistent. He rarely stays on topic, and some days I can barely get him to talk at all."

Harleen cocked her head. Mr. J giving someone the silent treatment? That did sound pretty unusual, seeing as the man _loved_ to talk. "He's probably trying to throw you off balance," she offered. "There are few things The Joker loves more than to keep people guessing."

He sighed. "I just can't get into his head the way you did."

"I never got into his head, Daniel," she shook her head sadly. "If anything, it was the other way around."

"But you knew how to deal with him," he insisted. "After all, you worked his case longer than anyone!"

She tucked a blonde strand of hair behind her ear and leveled her replacement with serious stare. "The Joker is like a child, Doctor Marsch: he likes to pull the head off your doll, not because he hated the doll, but because he thinks that your reaction will be funny." She shrugged, "And just like a little boy, he's only as powerful as you let him be; if you stop reacting, he'll stop acting out." Harleen turned away from him for a moment, staring blankly at a serene painting that hung on her wall. "Unfortunately, he knows how to scare people a little too well; I doubt there will ever come a day when no one is terrified of him anymore."

"That's deep, Doctor Quinzel," Daniel sounded impressed. "Do you think it was some kind of childhood trauma that stunted his mental growth?"

She shook her head again, turning back to her guest. "I don't think his mental growth was stunted at all. Despite the fact that he completely lacks a moral-center, he _is_ a genius." She thought of his wicked grin—the grin of a man who knew how to cause all kinds of trouble—and had to suppress a shiver. "No, I think he was a violent man to begin with, and he reverted to a semi child-like mentality as the result of some sickness that he's always struggled with. I just wish we knew what had set him off, or where his philosophies on life and people came from."

A silence stretched between them, almost too long to be considered comfortable. "I've been treating him as paranoid delusional," Doctor March finally offered, sounding as though he were looking for her approval.

Harleen sighed heavily. Marsch wasn't the first doctor to try that, but the symptoms didn't exactly fit Mr. J's case. There was something else at work with that man, something illusive. "He's too coherent for that."

"Well, then he's a pathological liar," Daniel replied immediately. "You wouldn't believe some of the stories he's told me!"

"He's just yanking your chain, Danny," Harley chuckled, and then paused. It wasn't funny, she reminded herself; The Joker's antics were enough to cause anxiety in even the most brilliant of minds. The fact that she had to remind herself of that didn't bode well, however. She was slipping again. "He likes to see how you'll react. The Joker loves to get under your skin."

"He asks about you, you know," Daniel said quietly. "Every day he asks me who his—Harley Quinn?—is working with, what she's wearing, if she's looking tired. It gives me the creeps," he finished hotly, a sneer pulling at his lips.

Harleen let out a dry, humorless laugh, "Now you know why I left."

He nodded understandingly. "It's great that he felt connected to you—I mean, that's more progress than any other doctor was able to make with him—but if that's how obsessive he gets over the people who manage to develop some kind of relationship with him, I don't think I'll be working his case for very long."

"That's probably for the best," she agreed. "I hate to say it, but with the way that man burns through doctors, I honestly think he's untreatable. Everything's just a game to him; he's not looking for rehabilitation, he's looking for recruits." And that thought led her down a dark and winding path she did not want to take; she really had been doing better without reminders of Mr. J creeping into her mind. She wanted to get rid of Doctor Marsch so that she could get back to the semi-peace she had found.

Reaching into a desk drawer, she pulled out a key and offered it to the man sitting across from her. "Here," she said, holding the object out to him. "This key will open the audio-closet in the archives. All of The Joker's sessions that were recorded have been stored there. If you want to prepare yourself for his tricks, I would recommend doing a little homework."

Daniel excused himself after that, an eager gleam in his eyes, but Harleen—despite reclaiming her Joker-free solitude—was left with a bad feeling deep in her soul. Something wasn't right. Daniel had already been working with The Joker for two weeks and was only now starting to show the smallest signs of fatigue. Why was Mr. J playing with the man? He should have gone through three or four doctors by now, but instead he was sticking with the grim and humorless Dr. Marsch? It didn't make sense… but then, The Joker rarely did until it was too late to change what he'd set into motion.

She was being pulled in two directions again. She had gotten her peace back, and a part of her wanted it to stay that way, but another part of her couldn't help but worry for Daniel.

The days began to trudge along after that, seeming to drag out endlessly no matter how much work she filled them up with. Her mind refused to settle on the mundane tasks she had set before her, and she frequently found herself making excuses to leave her office and roam the halls. Because of Daniel, Harleen reasoned; she was just trying to keep an eye on him. After all, she knew how draining it could be to work with someone as unpredictable as Mr. J. And, sure enough, with each day that passed Doctor Marsch looked a little more harried, a little more rundown—Harleen ignored the fact that she looked infinitely worse than Daniel, and she wasn't the one working with the psychotic clown anymore. She even managed to convince herself that their comforting chats in the break room were for Daniel's benefit—her small way of helping him adjust to the stresses of his new case, of helping him relax when work was over—and not out of plain curiosity for Mr. J on her part.

Harleen watched Daniel confusedly today. The man was starting to develop bags under his eyes, and his face was beginning to take on a pinched look. More than that, though, he was nervous today, which was unusual; for as dry of a man as he was, Daniel was normally pleasant company. "What's wrong?" she finally asked, pouring herself another cup of coffee—maybe she could skip sleep entirely if she was caffeinated enough.

"We need to talk," he said urgently, a strange note in his voice. "Alone."

Harleen frowned and looked around the break room; it was empty, aside from them. "We are alone," she offered carefully.

Daniel's eyes darted from side to side, and he lowered his voice conspiratorially, as though he suspected that someone was listening in somehow. "I went through all the recordings of your sessions with The Joker."

She nodded absently, stirring a little milk into her coffee. "They're an interesting listen, aren't they?"

"They most certainly are," his tone was confrontational now. "You kissed him?"

Harleen jerked, spilling her hot drink over the side of the cup. "Not as his doctor," she answered stiffly, moving to the faucet so that she could run her burnt fingers under some water. The coldness cleared her panicked mind from the shock—she should have known that someone would discover that out sooner or later. She had made a habit of recording all her sessions, after all. "It was the night he escaped," she clarified. "I was at a Halloween party, and I just thought he was another guest. I didn't know he was the real Joker," she defended quietly.

"Even so," Daniel had moved behind her, close enough to startle, "you shouldn't have worked on his case for so long, if at all."

"I know," she answered, gratefully accepting the towel he offered her. "But the board thought I was making some kind of progress with him, so they refused to reassign the case. I was stuck."

He was frowning when she finally turned to look at him, the faint bruises under his eyes giving him an almost menacing look. "I kept the tape," he said quietly. "I didn't want you getting into trouble after everything you've done to help me these past few days." He sighed wearily, moving back to the small table. "But even so, that recording still bothers me."

Harleen frowned, resuming her seat across from him. "I don't see why; it's not like anyone is going to guess what happened."

"It's not that," Daniel replied quickly. "It's just," he paused, running a hand through his already disheveled hair. "Everything about your sessions with him was _different_; he was responsive, playful even." His hand shook as he took a sip of his cooling coffee. "With me, he's always ambivalent, and I feel as though I'm constantly playing a stubborn game of Twenty Questions."

"You should be thankful for that difference," she muttered. "He nearly drove me up the wall during our sessions."

"That's what worries me," he insisted. "Why did he treat you so differently? Why is he still fixated on you even when you're no longer his doctor?"

"You could work with that man for a decade, Daniel," Harleen rubbed her temples, "and still not understand him. Who really knows what's going on inside that mind of his?"

"Look, I'm not going to pretend to know what happened between you two," he said quietly, "but I think that kiss made him curious. And then, after two months of getting to know the real you, curiosity turned into obsession."

"It wasn't the real me that he met over those two months," she sighed. "Not in his opinion, anyway. He thinks the real me is the one that played with him at the party. The only thing he's obsessed with is trying to prove that fact to me."

"Either way," Daniel replied nervously, "having The Joker's attention focused on you is not a good thing. It's nearly been a month and he _still_ asks about you, even though I never tell him anything."

Harleen ignored that bit of information, ignored how it so handily mirrored her own inability to let Mr. J go. "Has it really almost been a month? You've handled his case for longer than most."

"Well, not for much longer," he said firmly. "That's why I came to tell you about the recording. The board is reassigning The Joker's case because I accepted a job at Gotham City Medical Center," his face lit up when he said it, as though the thought of getting away from Arkham was like a breath of fresh air. "I just wanted you to know that your secret is safe now."

The fact that she had never thought it was in danger in the first place should have been a bad sign. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, she had always assumed that The Joker would make sure that particular skeleton stayed in the closet, despite the fact that it would have been logically impossible for him to do so. "Thank you, Daniel. That's more than most people in this profession would do." _Because it was unethical_. Had Mr. J blurred Danny's views of the world as well, or was Doctor Marsch just concerned for a friend? "You'll have to tell me how your new job goes," she offered a faint smile.

"You know," he took her hand from across the table, "if you ever want to get away from this madhouse, I have friends in several hospitals; I'm sure they would be more than happy to interview you."

She was splitting down the middle. Half of her desperately wanted away from Arkham, away from the criminal insanity, away from the doubt and the fear, away from The Joker. The other half of her cherished the ambiguity of her job, enjoyed the constant uncertainty it inspired, wanted nothing more than to keep guessing what would happen next. "My work here isn't finished yet," she replied quietly.

"Will it ever be?" he asked, something like pained disbelief flashing through his eyes. "Arkham is a dead-end, Harleen. Doctors are becoming patients here faster than patients are being rehabilitated." He finally let go of her hand. "And as long as The Joker's sitting pretty in his little cell, you'll never be free of him. When his next doctor has questions, who do you think they'll turn to?" Daniel's voice was beginning to rise, and he gestured wildly. "_You_, that's who. And they'll keep asking you questions, because no one can figure him out, and he'll keep howling for you like a lonely dog. How long do you think it will be before the board caves in and reassigns you to his case?"

Harleen sat silently in her chair. Daniel was right, of course; as long as she stayed at Arkham, she would always be trapped in The Joker's shadow. But, in a sick way, she was starting to have trouble picturing how life had been before that fateful Halloween, maybe even feared the thought of losing Mr. J a little. "I'm in deep, Daniel, and I don't know how to pull away without falling apart," she admitted in a small voice.

"Think about my offer," he encouraged, taking her hand once more. "You helped me through working with The Joker; now let _me_ help you recover from your own work with him."

Harleen looked into his pleading eyes, noting the concern swimming in their depths. Had she really been reduced to this, she suddenly wondered. Had The Joker twisted her so badly that she was willing to ignore the first legitimate means of escape she'd been offered? It wasn't as though she couldn't do the same job in other institutions; there was nothing holding her to Arkham, other than job security. But if Daniel really _could_ get her an interview, then what was to stop her from leaving?

"Please," Daniel urged. "We all walk a fine line between sanity and insanity, and all it takes to cross that line is a little push."

She shivered. Hadn't Mr. J said something like that to her during one of their sessions once?

He continued, oblivious to the note he had struck in her, "You could be free of all this madness."

_She could be free_. Free to treat her patients without the fear of violence hanging over her; free to have her own thoughts again, to sleep like a normal person, to live without the taint of obsession. "Do it," she said after a brief hesitation. "Talk to your friends." It was time to break away. The Joker had been an interesting acquaintance, but he was toxic. If she was ever to get her life back to the way it had been, she needed to get away from all traces of him. "Get me out of here."

* * *

A/N: Thus endeth part one. The next part will be posted tomorrow.

Please Review!

Quick Disclaimer: I own nothing. (The full disclaimer is at the end of the story, as well as my shout-outs and random notes.)


	2. I Know Where You Live

I Know Where You Live

"_I like to play with your hair, when you sleep and you dream,_

_and there's no one there."_

"In other news, the madman known as The Joker is still at large. The Gotham Police urge citizens to remain aware of their surroundings at all time and exercise extreme caution until the criminal is apprehended. If you have any information regarding this case, the police have set up a special hotline at-" Harleen turned off her car radio with an angry jab. She had almost been free, she thought while tightly gripping her steering wheel; she had been in plain sight of the light at the end of the tunnel. She had just started her new job at St. Anne's Care Center, leaving Arkham with no time to spare.

So, of course, just when she thought she could breathe easier—could finally breakout from the shadows—The Joker had escaped. Now his face grinned back at her from every newspaper and television report she saw, just as he'd said it would.

Somewhere, deep down, Harleen had always known that he would escape again—sometimes it seemed as though no walls on Earth could contain The Joker for any longer than he permitted them to—but his timing frightened her. Had he broken out because he'd heard that she had left Arkham, or had he simply escaped because he'd wanted to?

St. Anne's was clear on the other side of town from her apartment, situated in the nicer part of the city, not far from Wayne Enterprises. Her apartment, on the other hand, was in a less than savory neighborhood; not quite the Narrows, but not quite the better part of downtown either. When she'd worked at Arkham she had never thought to be overly afraid of the criminal element that existed near her home—after all, she knew quite a few of them by name, thanks to her work—but now that she had a job treating normal people, she could feel the fear trickle in every time she went home. As she passed the familiar sights of her neighborhood her hands slowly tightened on her steering wheel, her body tensed, and she felt as brittle as spun sugar until she pulled into her parking lot.

It wasn't until Harleen made it to her fifth-floor apartment that she realized her home could be just as unsafe as the rest of the city. A Joker card had been stabbed into her door, she noted with dread. Maybe it was just a prank by the snotty little brat down the hall. But no, that was one of her kitchen knives pinning the card, wasn't it? Who ever had done this had likely gone into her apartment. With shaking hands she unlocked her door, absently noting that her skin was _already_ crawling and she hadn't even gotten inside yet.

The interior of her apartment was… oddly untouched. Harleen frowned. Of course, there were signs that someone had been there—the blanket thrown over the back of her sofa was mussed, her television was playing a muted newsreel, a knick-knack or two were out of place—but nothing was broken or missing. She was almost beginning to think it really _had_ been the neighbor brat until she walked into her kitchen.

Stepping into her kitchen was like stepping into another world. A messy world. The counters and walls were all relatively clean—the faucet was even running over a pile of half-cleared dishes, sudsy handprints within easy reach of the sink—but the table was another matter altogether. A thick layer of… something—gunpowder, maybe?—covered the surface, obscuring the wooden façade. Most of the chairs had been tipped over, except for the one that he had obviously sat in. As Harleen drew closer, she noticed why he'd been sitting at all: a note lay on the table, scrawled in an erratic hand. Gingerly, she sat in the chair, leaning forward until she could read the letter without touching it.

'_Harley,_' it began with a flourish, '_I'm a patient man, but even __**I**_ _am beginning to find your stubbornness a little vexing._ _I thought it was kind of fun at first, our little game of cat and mouse. I pushed, and you pushed back. I pushed harder, but you got scared and ran away._'

The writing seemed to pause, only to continue on in slightly different handwriting. Not sloppier or more elegant, just different, as though he'd switched hands or something. '_Then they sent me Daniel—dear, __**idealistic**__ Daniel. He wasn't as innocent as you, but I set about breaking him anyway._' She shivered. So he had been trying to break her. '_I was curious to see when you would step in if you thought I'd been treating him the same way I'd treated you; you struck me as the type that would sacrifice yourself for others. But you surprised me, Harley._' She could almost hear his voice whispering the words into her ear, could almost see the smile that had likely curled his lips as he'd written the note. '_Weeks went by with only the slightest hint that you were even following my case—the sweet scent of sugared-grapes clinging to Marsch. Your scent. Instead of coming to confront me, you were trying to help from the sidelines. Were you doing it out of concern for a colleague, or because you couldn't let me go even when you were scared for your own sanity? If it weren't for the fact that Daniel gets so damn __**boring**__ after a while, it would have been interesting to see what the answer to that question was. But the game wore thin, and without you there was no reason to stay in Arkham._'

The writing switched back to the hand it had started in. '_Let's play a __**new**__ game, Harley! It's called, "__**Who is Harleen Quinzel?**__" I wager you're the undisputed champion so far, but I can probably give you a run for your money_.' The word 'money' had been scratched out in obvious distaste. '_I'll start. Harleen Quinzel is: about to call the police._' She jerked out of the chair, cursing herself for not calling the police before she'd even entered the apartment in the first place.

When Gotham's finest finally arrived several minutes later, it was to do little more than amble about her home aimlessly and give her pitying looks. It wasn't until Commissioner Gordon showed up that any action took place at all. It was strange and amazingly awful but, without the Commissioner, the police didn't seem motivated to do anything; once Gordon was on the scene, though, everyone snapped into action. Forensic teams scoured her home for prints, patrol officers took a wary look around for possible corpses, and a bomb-sniffing dog loped straight into her kitchen to _woof_ plaintively at her table.

"I don't suppose you could tell me of any enemies you might have," Gordon murmured in that oddly soothing voice of his. For a Commissioner, he didn't give off even the slightest hint of aggression or anger. With his thick mustache, slight build, and graying hair, Gordon looked more like someone's aging uncle rather than the head of the Gotham Police Department.

"I was The Joker's doctor," Harleen answered in a bit of a daze.

Gordon raised a brow. "You don't look like Daniel Marsch to me."

She frowned. "How do you know-"

"Doctor Marsch was one of the first people we notified after Joker escaped Arkham," he cut her off.

"Well, you'd better start making some more social calls," she replied sarcastically, "because Daniel wasn't the only doctor he had. The Joker must have gone through dozens of them while he was at the asylum."

"This doesn't fit his typical modus operandi," Gordon switched the subject. "Joker is more likely to leave bodies behind than cryptic love letters. Are you sure there isn't anyone out there who wants you scared?"

Harleen shook her head, remaining firm. "The Joker felt," she faltered, "…connected to me; I was his doctor for longer than anybody else." She shrugged and gestured toward her kitchen. "I simply can't believe that somebody other than him did this; he's the only person who's ever called me Harley."

"Commissioner?" a detective interrupted Gordon before he could reply. "I think you need to see this, sir."

Curiously, and against her better judgment, Harleen followed Gordon and the detective back into her kitchen.

"We found this," he held up a badge of some sort, "under the gunpowder, and… something else."

Gordon took the badge, and Harleen was close enough to realize that it wasn't a badge at all, but her old staff ID from Arkham, and it had been drawn on with grease pencil. Her name had been viciously crossed out and replaced with 'Harley Quinn', but what really sent a shiver up her spine was the picture. Swirls and squiggles crisscrossed the small photo, until it looked remarkably similar to the smeared makeup she had sported after the Halloween party.

"And the other thing?" Gordon asked, carefully handing the ID back to the detective.

He didn't say anything, only nodded back toward the table.

A small patch of the gunpowder had been cleared, revealing a single sheet of newsprint that had been hiding underneath. 'The Joker Escapes Arkham' ran in bold letters across the headline, a maniacally grinning picture below it. The word 'Ha!' had been written across the sheet, over and over again, a little darker each time, until the bottom of the page had finally been torn, carving the word into her kitchen table. Erratic H's and A's littered what could been seen of the table's surface, spilled over the edge and, presumably—if the baffled looking patrol officer under her table was anything to go by—covered the underside as well.

Gordon put a gentle but firm hand on her should. "I think you'd better come with us, Miss Quinzel."

* * *

An hour later found Harleen sitting in an interrogation room, a stale cup of coffee in her numb hands, and Commissioner Gordon sitting in front of her.

"You're not in any sort of trouble; I want you to understand that. We aren't accusing you of anything, and you're free to leave any time you wish," Gordon said comfortingly. "We _are_, however, concerned for your safety, so any information you can give us would be appreciated."

"If you've gone through all of The Joker's files from Arkham, then I doubt I could tell you anything you don't already know," she replied tiredly.

"Humor me," Gordon folded his hands and flashed a small smile. "Sometimes even the smallest detail can make the difference between life and death."

She decided not to point out that it didn't seem likely The Joker wanted her dead, or he would have killed her ages ago.

Gordon continued on. "Let's start with something simple. Do you have any idea why The Joker would target you?"

"Like I said earlier," she sighed, "I was his doctor for longer than anyone else. He enjoyed my company, but the stress of his case became too much for me to handle, so the board reassigned him to someone else." The words bubbled up out of her like champagne from a freshly opened bottle: fast and sweet, but not the best the bottle had to offer. The good stuff, what Gordon really wanted, were things she didn't feel like sharing. It wasn't anyone's business that she'd met The Joker long before she'd become his doctor, wasn't anyone's business if that chance meeting was what had sparked a mutual interest between the two of them. She wasn't interested in why The Joker was focused on her—she already knew that, didn't she?—she was only interested in making it stop before she lost herself. "Daniel—Doctor Marsch—he took the case up after me," she continued, not missing a beat. "He told me once that, even though he never mentioned me during their sessions, The Joker was always asking about me."

"You're good friends with Doctor Marsch?" Gordon asked.

"He's the reason I'm working with normal people at St. Anne's instead of with the crazies at Arkham," she answered simply.

He switched tracks abruptly, pulling out a photograph. It was obviously a picture of the underside of her table. A multitude of 'Ha!'s littered the surface from end to end, but there, in the middle of that sea of chaos was a single message. '_You'll be laughing soon enough_' had been carved deeply into the faux wood. "Does this mean anything to you?"

Harleen couldn't suppress a shuddered. "During our sessions, The Joker became convinced I had an alternate personality that was as deviant as himself—he called her Harley Quinn," she swallowed roughly, hating that her throat felt so dry. "He was obsessed with trying to draw her out, to prove that she existed." She eyes began to glaze over. "He saw something in Harley, something he didn't want to let go, and it frustrated him that Doctor Quinzel always stood between them."

If it disturbed Gordon that Harleen was speaking in third person about herself and an alter ego, he didn't show it. "Do you think that he would hurt Doctor Quinzel to get to Harley?" he asked gently.

"Who's to say?" Harleen responded, coming back to herself a bit. "The Joker's not exactly a predictable man. As long as he's interested in the puzzle I supposedly present, I don't think he'd try to kill me. But once he starts to get bored?" she trailed off with a shrug.

"_If_ he gets bored," Gordon suggested. "He may not be predictable, but he's always followed through on his threats in the past." He ran a hand through his peppery hair. "I don't know what he's planning for you, Miss Quinzel—I doubt anyone does, aside from him—but I do know I'd be a fool if I thought this little break-in was the end of it. I'd like to put you into protection until the matter is resolved."

"Protection?" she echoed. "What kind of protection?"

"We'll take you to an undisclosed hotel," he answered, "and ask you to stay there until The Joker has been caught."

* * *

The 'undisclosed hotel' turned out to be a Marriot at the edge of the city. Gordon had managed to get her a room up on the tenth floor but, even so, Harleen had to admit that she was a bit nervous. Security at a hotel was never exactly tight, and finding a way to get up to the tenth floor would just prove to be an interesting diversion for someone like The Joker. The only thing that calmed her nerves was the fact that Gordon had also booked the two rooms on either side of her and across the way, and was using them to keep constant surveillance on the hallway.

Of course, that wouldn't stop anyone from coming in through the windows.

Harleen threw her hastily packed duffel bag against the wall in frustration. At this rate she would drive herself crazy with possibilities long before The Joker ever got to her, she thought bitterly. She hated how scared and uncertain she felt, how she had to put her life in the hands of men who had repeatedly proven that they didn't know how to handle The Joker and, most of all, she _hated_ how she was curious to see what Mr. J would do next. Three or four months ago, she would have been utterly terrified at the thoughts running through her mind, but as things stood Harleen couldn't help but feel like this was some sort of… game. The Joker had set up the board and made his first few moves; she had countered with moves of her own, and was waiting for him to take his turn once more.

With a deep sigh, Harleen began to unpack; she didn't know how long she would be staying at the hotel, but unpacking gave her something to do. In some ways, putting her under police protection was one of the worse things Mr. J had done so far; without work to occupy her time, she would be left alone with far too much time to contemplate her recent actions.

She couldn't help but feel that this was his way of forcing her hand; he'd been right that she was swinging somewhere between denial and avoidance. Harleen hadn't wanted to acknowledge what Mr. J did to her, so she had found ways to get him out of her life. Was this his attempt to get her to admit that, to move on to the realm of acceptance? But he would have had to know before hand that the police would hide her, she reasoned. Then again, Gotham was a city drowning in corruption, so it was entirely possible that he had police officers working for him.

"You're already thinking too much, Harl," she muttered to herself, moving a stack of clothes to the cheap dresser. Gordon had really rushed her, so she had pretty much grabbed whatever she had first laid her hands on, the result being that her wardrobe was now something of a hodgepodge. By the time she ran across the fourth red and black shirt in a row, she gave up on unpacking. She hadn't realized how partial she was to those colors but, right now, she couldn't look at them; they would just remind her of Halloween and how this whole mess had begun.

With empty hands and nothing to do, Harleen decided to go to sleep. It wasn't likely that her situation would look any better in the morning, but at least a few hours would have been wasted.

* * *

In all honesty, Harleen had been expecting to wake only to find Mr. J lurking in her room; putting faith in the Gotham police was almost tantamount to suicide, after all. What she really found upon awakening was infinitely more disturbing.

Pictures, everywhere, dozens of little Polaroids littering the ground, taped to the walls, and surrounding her on the bed. She was in each picture, sometimes no more than a finger or toe, but most of the pictures were of her sleeping. And that was really more disturbing than she had ever given The Joker credit for being. Of course, she had known he was a mass-murdering psychopath, but this was just… terrifying. He'd been in her room—all night, judging by how many pictures he'd taken—and had watched her sleep, like a deranged stalker. Even more terrifying was that she hadn't woken up; whatever Mr. J had done, he'd done quietly. She had simply slumbered away, unaware of the potential danger she had been in. He could have done anything and she wouldn't have been able to stop him.

One picture stood out from the masses, mostly because it had something taped to it, but also because of the subject matter. It was a close-up of her face, so innocent and trusting in sleep. The Joker's hand—his bare hand—was lightly, _tenderly_, caressing the edge of her cheek, and she was leaning into that touch like a love-starved kitten.

Harleen stared at the photograph in shock. The Joker had so little regard for his _own_ self that if he loved at all, he did so on his own terms. It seemed hard to give such an eccentric and twisted man such a gentle emotion but, as with all things, Mr. J expressed affection the only way he knew how: boldly and violently. He had tormented and corrupted so many people that she hadn't really thought to question why he was playing with her. Was it possible that, under all that makeup and mania, he was lonely? That he wanted someone like himself for company? Or was this just another part of his game?

She shook her head and focused on the picture once more, finally peeling off the lumpy, fist-sized package that had been taped to it. Somewhere in her mind she recognized that this was something the police should have been doing, that she was contaminating evidence, but… when someone left her a gift, curiosity and good manners compelled her to open it. Now was no different, despite the fact that it was an insane ex-patient that had left the gift and that there was a distinct possibility it could explode.

The wrinkled hotel stationary gave way enough to reveal something that glimmered in the early morning light. There, in a bed of crumpled paper, laid a folded up switchblade. The Joker had given her a knife. It was relatively small, obviously made for a more delicate, female hand. The handle had been painted a shiny black, and the words "Harley Quinn" had been carefully etched into the side. She examined it slowly, cautiously unfolding the blade; aside from the nickname, there was nothing written on it, no manufacturers' names and no serial numbers. Had he made it himself?

Harleen battled with her conscience for a few minutes. It was bad enough that she'd opened the package without telling any of the officers around her, but now she was starting to feel a little… touched about the present it had contained. No one had ever put that much thought or effort into her gifts before; no one had ever thought that she might enjoy getting something like a knife. She'd always been given books or cute little dresses, things that would stimulate the intellectual and feminine sides of her; no one had thought that maybe she would appreciate the deadly gift like some people would appreciate fine art, that she would get a silent thrill out of owning something so inherently dangerous. No one, _except_ for The Joker. It was a taboo gift from a forbidden friend and, even though the whole situation filled her with something like dread, she kind of wanted to keep it. If she told the police about it now, they'd take it away because it had been in The Joker's possession at one time, but… well, it was _her_ knife now, and she wasn't about to let anyone steal her present.

Just as she was about to tuck the switchblade away in an empty pocket somewhere and then get the police, she noticed that the crinkled paper had actually said something on the inside. In a flourish, right below were the knife had once rested, Mr. J had written: '_Harleen Quinzel is: beautiful when she sleeps._'

* * *

"We're still trying to figure out how he got in," Gordon sighed as he placed two coffees on the worn interrogation table.

Harleen found it particularly telling that the Commissioner had chosen to say 'how he got in' instead of 'how he found you'. Someone on the inside was leaking information to The Joker, and Gordon knew it. "So what happens now?" she asked quietly, wrapping her hands around the hot drink.

He sighed again, the deep lines around his eyes standing out in his obvious stress. "I'm not sure," he replied solemnly. "Unfortunately, when it comes to The Joker, we're more used to cleaning up the aftermath of his crimes, rather than preventing them in the first place."

"Oh, that's comforting," she muttered sarcastically, pushing her blonde bangs out of her face. She was tired and disheveled, and the knife in her pocket was a guilty weight that demanded attention.

What would it be like to take out that knife and _play_? New thoughts and ideas suddenly plagued her; Mr. J hadn't given her the switchblade for decoration, after all. Did she even have the guts to attack anyone? She thought through the scenario for a few seconds. The MCU was crawling with officers and detectives, so she would have to kill pretty quickly if she had any hope of getting out. Of course, the first couple would be ugly, since she didn't really know where best to stab, but that was okay because the first couple always came the slowest. That initial burst of chaos had a way of making those earliest moments the longest. Gordon probably wouldn't go down without a fight though, and he was a seasoned officer. If she didn't find a way to pass by him quickly, she wouldn't get out at all. Perhaps if she pretended to faint, he would come close enough that she could plunge the blade into a vital organ.

She whimpered, shaking the thoughts from her head. What was happening to her?

"Are you all right?" Gordon asked, concern lining his face.

She hugged herself and nodded. She wasn't all right, but she didn't see how the Commissioner could help stop something that was only in her mind.

"Look, we don't have very many choices," he went back the previous conversation, "The Joker is too unpredictable for us to plan these things well. My suggestion right now is for you to get into you car and drive. Don't tell anyone where you're going; maybe even go somewhere you've never been before."

Harleen stared at him in shock. "And you don't think that's exactly what he wants?" she asked hotly, fighting the scared tinge out of her voice. "It's not hard to follow someone, Mr. Gordon, and if I told no one where I was going then I would be completely unprotected." Her thoughts flashed back to the hotel and how unwittingly vulnerable she had been there. "I could be missing for hours or days and no one would know."

He looked away and took a sip of his coffee, as though he needed that brief moment to collect his thoughts. "We could get the Feds to provide protection, since Joker's got such a high profile case, but their help won't come easy and there's no guarantee it will be any more effective than our help has been."

"Where's Batman when you need him?" she muttered, taking a sip of her own coffee.

He gave a sad smile. "We're running out of options, Miss Quinzel, but we're not that desperate yet."

"Really?" she snapped. "Because from where I'm sitting it looks like we're _out_ of options. Going to another hotel would be ineffective, driving off on my own would be reckless, and Federal protection isn't going to deter The Joker. What else is there?"

* * *

In the end, Harleen had to resort to cheating. Gordon had placed in calls with several Federal agencies, and was working to put her into the witness protection program—as if she wasn't already having an identity crisis! She was back in her apartment now—packing new clothes—with the Commissioner only a few rooms away, and she had decided that she was done letting the police run the show. It was time to take the reins and decide on her own path.

Quietly, she pulled out her cell phone and ran through her contact list until she found the name she wanted.

"Doctor Marsch speaking," Daniel's voice answered clear and strong from the other line.

"Daniel," she whispered desperately, "I need help."

"Harleen, is that you?" he asked, surprise heavy in his voice. "Where have you been? I've been trying to call you for hours; my friend at St. Anne's said you never came in to work today. What's going on?"

"I'll explain later, I promise, but right now I need your help," she replied.

He paused for a few seconds, then said, "You have my help—I promised you, didn't I?"

"Even if it might put your life in danger?" she asked.

"I'm off shift in less than twenty minutes," he ignored her question. "Head over to my place; I'll be there by the time you arrive." He hung up before she could reply.

Harleen stared at her phone for a few seconds, debating the wisdom of what she was about to do. But leaving police protection was really just a lateral move; she was no safer with them than she was on her own. Why should she submit to their codes and regulations if they weren't doing her any good? The Joker would catch up to her either way.

She looked around her room, wondering if this was perhaps the last time she would see the familiar space. With a heavy heart, but a firm resolve, she grabbed her favorite jacket, slipped her switchblade into the pocket, and opened the window as quietly as she could. The old pane stuck in a couple places, but eventually opened wide enough for her to climb out onto the fire escape. It wasn't really cheating, she reasoned with herself as she climbed down the rusted ladders; after all, Gordon _had_ told her to go somewhere without telling anyone.

And there, taped to the ladder an entire story below her own apartment, was a note from The Joker that actually made her smile. '_Harleen Quinzel is: tired of people running her life for her._'

* * *

Daniel opened his apartment door and ushered her in quickly. "I was starting to get worried," he hugged her. "It doesn't take two hours to get from your home to mine."

"I'm sorry," she replied, not returning his embrace, "I wanted to make sure no one was following me, so I took a pretty convoluted route."

"Will you please tell me what's going on now?" he begged, taking a seat in the living room.

Harleen sat stiffly across from him. "Everything's gone wrong lately," she began. "Ever since I started at St. Anne's, the news has been splashed with The Joker's escape from Arkham, and then yesterday-" she broke off roughly. Gathering her courage, she told him about everything that had happened over the last twenty-four hours.

"What's really scaring you, Harleen?" Daniel asked gently after she had finished her story.

She cocked her head to the side and gave him a strange look.

"Don't get me wrong," he defended, "The Joker is terrifying. But that isn't what's really got you on the run, is it?"

She shuddered and stared sightlessly at her hands. "I can feel myself slipping, you know; I can feel my thought patterns changing, becoming darker and more dangerous. Sometimes, I don't recognize myself anymore, Danny," she said quietly, sounding lost. "I find myself filled with more curiosity over what The Joker will do next than dread; I ignored suggestions and orders from government officials, and snuck out of my own home to avoid protection that I _do_ need." Her hand dove into her pocket, and she pulled out the switchblade. "I kept a gift that was given to me by a lunatic, and I didn't tell the police about it!" Her voice was taking on a desperate edge. "I keep asking myself 'Who is Harleen Quinzel?' and I don't think I know anymore."

"You're under stress," Daniel soothed. "It's understandable that you're feeling confused and vulnerable."

Harley stared at the knife in her hands. "People want to believe that, deep down, they're inherently good, but the more The Joker chips away at me, the more I begin to think that there's something wicked hiding under the surface. Maybe," she began, her voice taking on a sharp edge. "Maybe Harleen is the mask that I wear, and the real me isn't a good person."

"Joker brings out the worst in all of us," he said carefully, "but that doesn't mean that the darkness we find under his influence is really who we are. Everyone has a dark side," he murmured plainly, "it would unbalanced not to. Just because you're discovering your dark side at his hands, doesn't mean you're innately wicked. The trick is to not let it overwhelm you."

"You worked with him too," she looked him in the eye. "You know how hard it is not to get swept up in his mania." She sighed heavily and turned her attention back to the folded up knife in her hands. "I feel like I'm free-falling into a dark canyon, Danny, and the only person I can trust to save me is the very same person who pushed me off the cliff in the first place." She flipped the knife open, silently thrilled when her companion jumped at the action. "I don't know what to do anymore, except wait for him."

"Don't become dependant," Daniel urged. "That's the worst thing you could do right now."

"It's far too late for that," Harley responded, studying how her blade glinted in the lamplight. "I've been fighting a losing battle since the moment I met him. I tried to break away," she raised her eyes to meet Daniel's, and she knew he could see the obsession that had eaten away at her, "but the whole time I was gone, I craved him. I can't tell you how many times I walked past the observation room while you were in session with him, desperately hoping to catch even the faintest rumble of his voice." She hugged herself, and cringed. "He terrifies me and yet, at the same time, he fascinates me. I hate what he is and what he does, and yet I can't help but be envious of him."

Daniel rose to his feet quickly. "You're bleeding," he exclaimed, dashing to her side. True enough, blood was slowly creeping down her arm. She had forgotten about the knife before she'd hugged herself meaning that, in a gesture of self-comfort, she had only succeeded in stabbing her own shoulder.

Harley laughed, long and hard, until tears came to her eyes and she cried under her hysterical mirth.

* * *

A/N: Next part tomorrow.

Please Review!

Disclaimer: I own nothing.


	3. Wake The Dead

Wake The Dead

"_I just do the things I do, it's natural to me._

_There's no rhyme or reason for my odd insanity."_

It took a while to treat her wound; the cut hadn't exactly been clean and it was at something of an unusual angle. She was still bleeding a bit through the bandage, several hours later, but that was because she kept agitating the wound by running her hand over the white gauze covering it. Daniel had a look on his face—as if he were about to scold her like a naughty child—when a knock sounded throughout the apartment.

On silent feet, he walked to the door and looked through the peephole. He turned around just as quietly, almost cat-like in his grace, and came back to Harleen's side. "It's Gordon," he whispered in her ear.

She shook her head. "I don't want him to find me; he'll just take me back to the MCU."

"All right." He looked around the room, his eyes catching on the noticeable splotch of reddish-brown that marred his pale couch. "I can't leave him out in the hallway without looking suspicious, but if he comes in he'll notice your bloodstain and probably take a look around. Are you good at hiding?"

"I'll go sit out on the fire escape," she replied, standing up. "The Gotham police are rarely ever that thorough."

The knock sounded again, more impatient this time.

"Coming," Daniel called in an overly cheerful voice, waiting until she had disappeared into the back room before he went to open the door.

Harleen was just slipping through the window when she heard the murmur of Gordon's voice. As carefully as possible, she tried to shut the window from the outside, in case he really did take a look around. She stood awkwardly on the rusted metal floor for a few minutes, unsure of what to do. The only thing she was certain of was that she didn't want the Commissioner to find her—she'd only just gained her freedom, after all—and he had to have figured out that she'd used the fire escape to get out of her own apartment. If he checked out the window, she would be waiting right there like a fool. It was starting to get dark out, though, so maybe if she went up a floor or two, he wouldn't be able to see her. It wasn't a great plan, but she was feeling mentally drained, and it was the best she could come up with at the moment. Luckily, she noticed that the apartment above Danny's was empty and the outdoor light was broken, so no one would notice her lurking.

Unfortunately, that also meant that she couldn't see what was waiting up there for her; the moment she let go of the ladder, a pair of strong arms wrapped around her from behind. "What is it about shadowy corners that attracts us?" a rough, male voice whispered in her ear.

Harleen jerked when she felt a tongue run over the shell of her other ear, and began to struggle.

"Is it the freedom of action?" he carried on, one hand creeping up to the bandage on her arm. "The knowledge that we can do anything we please in the shadows because we know no one is going to be watching us too closely?" He unraveled the white gauze and ran curious fingers over the messy wound below. "Or is it merely a convenient place to hide?" Without warning, he dug his fingernails into the cut, opening it until her blood welled up just enough to send lazy rivulets down her arm.

"Damn it!" she cursed, trying to maneuver around so that she could aim a good kick at the man's shins, but he lifted her bodily into the air, so that she hung from his support like a rag doll.

"Don't hide your scars, Harley Quinn," he purred hypnotically, "show them off with pride. Put them on display for the whole world to see."

It shouldn't have been a comfort to find out that it was The Joker holding her in such a violent embrace, but the sad truth was that she felt safer with him than she would have with some other weirdo who prowled fire escapes. "Mr. J?" she asked breathlessly.

"I should certainly hope so," he growled in mock offense. "I'd be very disappointed if I found out that you'd been seeing other master criminals behind my back."

"What are you doing here?" she wondered aloud, blithely ignoring the pain in her arm. It was strange and a little sick, but the sharp throbbing had dulled to a point where it almost felt… _nice_.

"You wound me," he drew out the words playfully. "It's been so long since we've seen each other, _Doc_. Don't tell me I was the only one who missed our little chats."

She didn't say anything; she couldn't. She _had_ missed their time together, terribly, but that wasn't something you admitted to a guy like him. Mr. J was an opportunist, and if she gave him too much information, he'd find ways to use it against her.

"Still as stubborn as ever, I see." He nipped at her jaw. "Maybe a little _entertainment_ will loosen that cute tongue of yours."

"Gordon's just downstairs," she burst out suddenly. "He'd find you if I screamed."

The Joker laughed. "But he'd find you too and, from what I've heard, you're not too keen on working with the police right now."

It was frightening how Mr. J always knew more than he should have. How was it that a man who revered chaos and reviled organization managed to stay so well informed? Or had he simply guessed at the reason she was skulking around the fire escape of Daniel's building? Sometimes, she felt like The Joker knew her better than she knew herself; maybe he had known all along that she would tire of Gordon's interference in her life, especially when his protection had turned out to be so inefficient. "Maybe I want to be rid of you more than I want to stay out of police control."

"Now, if that were true, Harley," he set her back on her feet, "you wouldn't have kept the knife. But you did, didn't you?" One of his hands ghosted over the lump the switchblade created in her jacket. "You couldn't resist, could you?" he purred, turning her around. "Knives have such an underrated charm, when you think about it." His eyes drilled into her own, daring her to look away. "You were already tired of being Harleen Quinzel when we first met and, metaphorically speaking, a knife is a good way to cut those fraying ties."

"I was curious," she admitted hesitantly.

"As are most children who hold a dangerous weapon for the first time," he replied, his eyes drifting to her bleeding shoulder. "But you're not a child, are you, Harley?"

She felt herself splitting under his gaze. A part of her knew she should scream, find some way to gain Gordon's attention, find some way to get out of The Joker's grasp. But another part of her was entranced, waiting to see what he would do next and knew that, even though she would later regret going along with whatever he did, a dark corner of her mind would have fun.

"You're not giving that knife up," he continued, ignoring her obvious internal struggle, "and tonight I'm going to teach you how to use it like a big girl."

It was happening again, Harley realized; this was just like what he'd done at the Halloween party. The pretty words and games he'd played with her at Arkham had really all just been in the name of fun; it was at the Halloween party that Mr. J had really changed her. He had delved into her brain, disconnected her thought patterns and rewired them to look more like his own, and she had _let_ him because it had been _exciting_. Now, months later, she could see that she'd been fighting a losing battle the whole time. What chance of getting away from The Joker did she stand if he'd already redecorated her soul before she'd even known it was him? He would always be a part of her now, she realized; he would always be a part of the doubt, a part of the pain, a part of the corruption that she was so curious to taste.

If she let him teach her how to use the knife, she would never be able to break away from him. Her fall into Harley Quinn was beginning to seem inevitable, though, and if she was to fall no matter what, why not have Mr. J waiting at the bottom of the canyon to catch her? Was there really any point in trying to get away? From the very start, he'd been molding her into something new; she hadn't stood a chance because the damage had been done long before she had even known she should have been on guard.

He held out a hand, and her nerves began to fail her. She hesitated, biting her lower lip.

It was one thing to contemplate her own dependency on a mass-murdering psychopath, but quite another to think about becoming one herself. When it came right down to it, Harleen knew she didn't have the courage to use her switchblade. It was a forbidden thrill to have the knife but she knew, in a failing part of her mind, that using it would put the final nail in the coffin. Not of being tied to The Joker—she was fairly certain that she was bound to him irreversibly—but to being Harley Quinn. If she bloodied that blade under Mr. J guidance, then it would prove that Harley did exist, that she was more than just a sick dream The Joker had cooked up.

His hand closed tightly over her wrist, drawing her close. "There's no room for doubt in this, Harley. Harleen is last year's model, and there's no going back," he stated simply.

A police siren pierced the night from below them, moving further and further away. Gordon had left, and any linger hope she might have had of being saved left with him. She stared at The Joker, at the shadowy and indistinct features that stared back at her. She wasn't brave enough to play with him, but was she brave enough to play without him?

"I don't think-" she began, but he cut her off.

"No, neither do I," he laughed. "But that's half the fun." He crowded her then, steering her bodily down the fire escape ladder and back toward Daniel's window.

She had barely stumbled back into the apartment before she came face to face with Daniel. "I was just about to go get you," he sighed wearily. "I think Gordon's going to be a problem."

"What do you mean?" Harleen asked, steadying herself against the wall. Briefly she wondered where Mr. J had gone; she couldn't hear him out on the fire escape anymore.

Daniel sighed again, rubbing at his temples this time. "At face value, the Commissioner is treating your case as an abduction. He made a point of mentioning that there had been no signs of struggle though, so I think he knows that you decided to leave on your own."

"I don't care whether he's suspicious or not," she snapped, absently running her fingers over the torn flesh on her arm, "just so long as he doesn't find me."

"You need to stop playing with that," he replied seriously. "It's never going to heal properly if you keep making it bleed." He shook his head, switching back to his previous thoughts. "And it _is_ something to worry about, you know. Gordon might start looking for you for different reasons now."

She stared at him curiously, trying to focus on what he was telling her, but she kept getting distracted by an odd shuffling noise from outside.

"Gordon found the recording," Daniel stressed urgently. "He confiscated it because it was Arkham property and I'm no longer an Arkham employee; he seemed particularly interested in it because it was one of The Joker sessions. If Gordon listens to it, he'll know that you and The Joker-"

"Locked lips?" Mr. J asked sarcastically, finally emerging through the window. A heavy bag thudded to the ground just by his feet as he stood—awkward and menacing—his presence filling more of the room than he physically occupied. "Let them know," he laughed strangely. "Let them worry and pace and wonder. It won't matter in the end, because it's not Harleen Quinzel that they'll find."

There was a moment of perplexed silence, as though all three of them were trying to figure out how to react to one another. The two doctors slowly began to pull away from The Joker, but he seemed to have an animalistic sense of when he was losing his audience; he quickly wrapped his hand around the back of Harleen's neck, his thumb coming around to press at the side of her throat. It wasn't an outright menacing grip—he wasn't strangling her after all—but it was a hold she had to obey.

"Let go of her," Daniel demanded, panic beginning to color his voice as he made to defend her.

Harleen felt The Joker's fingers tighten on her reflexively, and her breathing quickened. He wasn't threatening _her_, but the promise of violence still laid thick around him, and it was hard not to respond to that.

"Touching, Doctor Marsch, really," his voice rang out sarcastically. " But the thing about rescuing a damsel-in-distress is that she actually has to _be_ in _distress_."

Daniel continued to inch forward until The Joker pulled out a knife. He swallowed roughly and hesitated, but said, "I think you're mistaking her panicked silence for compliance."

"And I think you're mistaking her psychological upheaval for weariness," Mr. J replied, throwing his bag over a shoulder before he steered Harleen into the kitchen. "Has anyone ever told you that you're much too serious for your own good, Doctor Marsch?" he called over his shoulder. "Maybe _you_ could stand to have a little _fun_ tonight, too."

She felt his grip shift before he moved and opened her mouth to warn Daniel, but The Joker was too fast. Daniel hit the floor before he had even realized that The Joker wasn't putting his bag down but, rather, using it as a weapon. The loaded object hit Daniel's head from the side and, though he didn't lose consciousness, he crumpled to the ground and stayed there.

"Why are you doing this?" Harleen asked angrily as Mr. J forced her into one of the kitchen chairs, pulling her arms uncomfortably behind her.

"You told me once that you were tired of being a watcher, that you wanted to be a doer." She heard him open his bag and begin to shuffle through its contents. "What I don't understand," he continued languidly as something hard and cold closed over her wrists, "is why you struggle so much when all I'm doing is granting you that wish." His statement was punctuated by twin clicks.

She jerked as he came around to stand in front of her, but her hands clanked uselessly against the back of her chair, and unforgiving metal bit into her wrists. The Joker had effectively bound her, looping a pair of handcuffs through one of the slats in the chair back so that she couldn't move. Panic rising, she kicked out her legs, but if he felt her blows at all, he didn't indicate it. "What are you doing?!" she finally screamed, rocking the chair slightly.

The Joker loomed above her, and smiled. "It's not good enough to have a new inside, sweetheart." He began to pull things out of his bag to lay them on the nearby table. Knives of all shapes and sizes clattered to the wooden surface, and brushes too—hair brushes, makeup brushes, even thick swabs of cotton—then several small pots of stage makeup and hair dyes, until finally the table was covered in a strange mix of the innocent and the dangerous. "We have to change the outside, too."

She had always been scared of him in a visceral way—even when he'd been at Arkham, perfectly restrained and under constant guard, he had proved a threat to mental health—but right now, at his dubious mercy, she truly _feared_ him. He had so little regard for his own wellbeing that she often doubted he felt pain and, if that was the case, would he cut her up forgetting that she herself had no such luxury? And, if he did remember, would he even care? He disliked Doctor Quinzel, after all; would he cut the Doctor up in an attempt to suppress her, to make room for Harley?

He crouched down for a moment, pressing against her shins, and studied her intently. His gaze was so strong that she felt as though he were stripping away her flesh, trying to find whatever lay beneath. "You're a tricky woman, you know," he murmured quietly, "so full of dichotomy. You're at odds with everything around you and everything within you. You want to be different, but you're too afraid to try." He reached for a pot of white makeup and unscrewed the top. "I can give you that courage, but the first thing we'll need to do is bury the Doctor." His fingers dipped into the paint, but he didn't immediately start covering her face like she had expected him to. "So the question becomes, are you brave _enough_ to take that first step on your own? Are you ready to _accept_ the situation and _change_?"

Did she have a choice? He'd been pushing her to the edge of sanity for months now, poking and prodding until he got the reactions he wanted. She barely even recognized herself anymore and, in some ways, she had already acknowledged the fact that she wouldn't be able to go back to being the Harleen Quinzel she'd been before they had met. The Joker had left his taint on her, and it couldn't be washed off or discarded. If she fought now, if she resisted, to what end would it be? She was slipping fast, falling far—and maybe, the thought crossed her mind, it would be easier to continue downward than to climb her way back up. Hesitantly, knowing that she was making the worst decision possible, she nodded. "Do it."

Mr. J smiled, satisfaction and triumph gleaming in his eyes. "By the time this night's over, Harley," he replied, beginning to smear the white paint over her face, "you won't regret this decision." He laughed feverishly. "You won't remember _how_ to regret."

His words washed over Harley as he continued to talk—manic lectures about chaos and corruption, ideals and fear—but the real magic he performed over her came from his hands. With each sweep of his fingers, with every line he drew and every speck of cold paint he spread over her, she felt something within her shift and change. As her face became white, she became bold; as her lips and cheeks swirled with red, she became excited; and when black circles finally ran and bled around her eyes, she lost her fear. Just as Mr. J had changed her on Halloween, he'd changed her now; he'd given her a new face with which to be a new person.

When he'd finished with her makeup, The Joker stood back and admired his work. "A masterpiece, if I do say so myself. But," he grabbed a knife and swept up her hair with his other hand, "not enough. I can still see constrained and regulated Doctor Quinzel lurking about you." He began to use his knife like a razor, pulling her hair and cutting locks at random.

Ropes of blonde hair fell to the ground, and Harley couldn't bring herself to feel anything but happy about it. She'd been growing her hair out for years, it was half-way down her back, but she always wore it in tight little styles like buns or braids—something strict and severe enough to hide the slight curl and wave her locks were partial to. Now, watching uneven hunks of it float serenely to the floor, she was overjoyed. She didn't have to hide it anymore! Her hair could do whatever it wanted from now on—she had a feeling that that was what The Joker had intended, cutting it so erratically that pulling it back would no longer be an option.

He came around front to study her once more, the knife disappearing into his coat as he cocked his head to the side. "Beautiful," he grinned, eyes narrowing. "So much more beautiful than Harleen ever could have been. So, _Harley_," his grin crept even wider, "are you ready to go out and play?"

She shifted her arms uncomfortably and thought for a moment. "Ready?" she echoed quietly. "I'm _dying_ to go!" she laughed hysterically, acknowledging that on some level it was true; Harleen was dying, and Harley was taking over.

The Joker's laughter joined her own. "I'll leave the rest to you, then," he tossed his bag into her lap, going back around her to undo the handcuffs. He left them attached to one side, the cold metal dangling from her wrist like a strange bracelet, and used the empty side like a leash, pulling her arm around front and using it to hoist her from the chair. She clutched the bag curiously as he urged her toward the bathroom. "Be quick about it," he encouraged. "You wouldn't want to be late for our first night on the town, would you?"

Once the door shut behind her, Harley tore open the bag. Inside was her Halloween costume… sort of. The skirt had gone completely missing and, instead of diamond-patterned tights, The Joker had given her a pair of sturdy, black pants to tuck around a pair of heavy boots. Her corset had been replaced with an interesting shirt—tight around the torso, but loose around the arms, creating a bit of a bell-sleeve effect—that was predominantly black, but had careful splashes of red twisting up the sleeves. He'd given her a waistcoat, too, not unlike his own, though it was cut lower to emphasize her attributes. It was an interesting little thing too, she realized as she put it on; it was red with black splashes, the opposite of her shirt, and it had small metal loops sewn into the backside to hide a holster for a knife or a gun. He'd given her a coat as well—black with red trim, and little diamond-shaped buttons—that, unlike his own heavy jacket, followed the curve of her back a little closer, nipped in near her waist, and belled out in small pleats reaching almost to her knees.

It should have disturbed Harley that he'd gotten the measurements so exact, and that none of the clothes had tags on them—it would have disturbed Harleen—but she was much too pleased by how she looked. The clothes hugged her frame intimately, providing just enough room to hide a few weapons without creating obvious lumps or bulges and, on top of that, she looked good in them. There was something a little devil-may-care about her now, although that could have been thanks to the makeup. Still, the full effect was amazing—she definitely didn't recognize herself anymore—and she couldn't help but be thankful toward Mr. J. Just as when he'd given her the switchblade, he'd cut down to the very heart of her, found her dark side and had given it a gift it truly enjoyed. No one else would have thought to get her such clothing; she had always been given things that were bright and cheerful, which was strange because, looking in the mirror, she couldn't deny that this _suited_ her.

Blonde hair fell around her face in frenzied layers, some ghosting as high as her ears and some brushing all the way to her shoulders; dark clothing draped from her, emphasizing her curves and yet concealed the hidden dangers that laid beneath; and a wicked clown grinned back at her in the mirror. Harley Quinn had come screaming to the surface and, just as Mr. J had promised, it _was_ fun.

* * *

Her nerves reappeared later that night, however, when The Joker took her and Danny—who was still woozy and probably concussed, because he did nothing more than lay across the backseat of their wildly swerving car—to a gambling den. It was obviously illegal, and probably run by one of the many crime families that controlled Gotham from under the table.

"_This_ is where you're going to teach me to use my knife?" she asked nervously.

The Joker didn't answer, simply got out of the car, reached back in to grab a hold of the handcuff that was still dangling from her wrist, and pulled her out after him. "No time for cold feet, Harl," he warned her in his low, rumbling voice. "You confound them, or they kill you; either way, there's not much merit in thinking it over."

"So, we're just going to waltz right in?" she asked, trailing behind him, her wrist aching a bit from being wrenched out of the car like that.

He laughed. "I think we're quite surprising enough, don't you?"

He was right; it wasn't as though anything could be much more unexpected than an impromptu training session from one crazed clown to another. "Any last minute suggestions?" she questioned as they went through the surprisingly unguarded door.

"Don't hesitate," he murmured. "They won't, so why should you?"

They ambled down an empty hallway for a while, passing grim and abandoned rooms. A quiet buzz began then, getting louder as they continued down the hall, until she could finally hear that it was really the shriek and shout of many voices all speaking at once. Eventually, they came to an ornate door that opened to an old ballroom that was sunken into the ground. Dozens of tables had been set up, each with a different game, luring the wealthy crime bosses to play with their fortunes. "Why aren't there any guards?" she finally voiced what had been bothering her.

"They're like children, Harley," Mr. J sneered in disgust. "They think that they're the biggest bullies on the playground; they think that, just because they've beaten all the challengers down so far, because they have so much money and so many followers, they're _safe_."

She looked at him for a moment, studying the war paint that she knew her own copied. "But they aren't safe, are they?"

"Not from us," he replied. "No one is." He paused briefly, digging a gun out from the folds of his coat. "Now, this is going to be messy," he told her, placing the gun in her left hand, "but the first time always is. I recommend using the gun to stun them, and then the switchblade to finish the job." He looked out into the crowd, surveying the mobsters like cattle. "Ready?"

Harley looked to her hands, a knife in one and a gun in the other, then back out into the crowded ballroom; small weapons in untrained hands against dozens of professional criminals. "There's only two of us," she worried suddenly.

"Oh, don't fret about that," The Joker replied soothingly, just as an explosion rocked the building. "I've already taken care of it."

The ballroom had four supporting pillars keeping up the domed roof, and one of them had just been blasted apart at the seams. Gilded bricks shot across the room, crashing into walls, people, and other pillars. Another tower vibrated and fell, eliciting screams and shouts from the people below them until the dome over their heads gave a sickening groan. For a brief moment the world was quiet, and then the unsupported portion of the ceiling was roaring toward the ground, silencing a fresh wave of screams before it had a chance to rise up.

The Joker laughed as cloud of impact-dust shot through the doorway, dancing around the two of them before settling to the floor. "Let's go see to the survivors, shall we?" he chuckled, carefully walking into the debris-strewn room.

Harley trailed after him curiously, careful not to trip down the now-treacherous stairs. It was a strange moment for her, really; part of her was horrified at the destruction surrounding them—at the dusty limbs that were missing bodies, at the screaming survivors who were desperately looking for exits, and at the people who had managed to stay alive but were trapped under rubble—but another part of her was eagerly wondering what would happen next. She should have known that she wouldn't have to wait long though.

The Joker had already fished someone out of the rubble, a younger man with dark hair and pale eyes. He didn't look like the sort who belonged in a mob-run gambling den but, then, looks were deceiving. She recognized this man; she had gone to school with him, worked with him for a while, as well. It was Jonathan Crane, doctor turned drug-dealer. He was remarkably unscathed for having just survived the ceiling collapse, but he was sweating and shaking.

"Lesson number one, Harley," Mr. J said grandly, setting Crane on his feet and backing away. "Immobilize them quickly and kill them slowly."

Crane staggered a bit where he stood but tried to run anyway, weaving awkwardly and falling over rubble.

Harley tuned out the roar of shouting voices and the press of frightened bodies and immediately trained her gun on Crane, but didn't fire. She knew this man, the thought suddenly flared in her mind. She hadn't agreed with his methods or his ethics, but they had been friends in school, and he had always struck her as peculiarly charming. A thousand tiny memories suddenly assaulter her, simple things like studying for finals with him or getting a coffee together on a cold night. Her nerve was about to completely desert her when Crane picked up a discarded gun from the floor and shot at her.

Correction, she thought as a bullet whizzed past her head, _Harleen_ had known Jonathan Crane.

The Joker's hand closed over the back of her neck. "I told you not to hesitate," he growled in her ear.

"I won't do it again," Harley promised, raising her gun. She squeezed the trigger and luxuriated in the feel of the recoil vibrating up her arm as she watched Crane drop to the ground, screaming as he went.

"Nice shot," Mr. J complimented, urging her forward to finish the job.

She quickly crossed the room, sidling up next to her victim. People seemed to instinctively get out of her way, cringing and crying as they went. Were mob bosses supposed to be so… weak?

"You rotten bitch," Jonathan snarled, trying to slow the blood that was pouring from his knee.

"Well, you shouldn't have shot at me," she replied vindictively, kicking his dropped gun away. "I was having a crisis of faith; I _might_ have spared you." She shot his other knee, grinning when he howled. "But I don't think I want to anymore."

He grimaced in pain, but his brow furrowed in confusion. "_Harleen_?" he asked, sounding dumbfounded. "Harleen, is that you?"

She waved childishly as she placed a booted foot against one of his wounds. "Hi, Johnny."

"What the hell are you doing?" he yelped, trying to hide his obvious pain.

She shrugged and looked to Mr. J, who had come up beside her. "Having fun," she finally replied to the prone man. "What are you doing?"

"Another flunky for The Joker, I see," he laughed unexpectedly. "I heard he could get his hooks into anyone, but I never thought I'd see the day when he'd even _want_ someone like _you_."

Harley's blade flashed through the air, embedding itself deep into Crane's hand. "Don't be rude," she chastised. "It's unbecoming."

Mr. J laughed loudly behind her, obviously pleased with how the whole scene was unfolding.

"Unbecoming?" Crane echoed angrily, pain lacing his voice. "You want me to happy that I'm getting mauled by The Joker's rabid dog?"

She pulled the knife out of his hand with a sickening squelch, and brought the dripping blade to hover threateningly over one of his eyes. "I don't think I like the way you're talking about me."

Crane brought his good hand up defensively, trying to push her wrist away from him. "What did he do to you, Harleen?"

"_My name_," she exploded, a red haze closing in on her, "_is Harley Quinn!_" Louder screams began to rip through the night, rising above the frightened shout of the trapped criminals, as she got a good sense of how to handle her new switchblade. And when Crane begged for mercy, she only cut him deeper. She would have continued until he bled out, but Mr. J grabbed the cuff around her wrist and pulled her away from the crying man.

He winked at her, then kicked Crane hard in the ribs. Slowly, he leaned down until he was looming just in front of the crumpled man's face. "As much as I hate to deprive Harley of her fun," he said sinisterly, "you might be of better use alive."

"I want to kill him," Harley pouted in the throes of bloodlust.

"Lesson number two," The Joker announced, pulling out his own knife. "Always be willing to sacrifice your minor entertainments if an opportunity to cause greater trouble arises." He grabbed Crane's face—the only part of his body that Harley had spared—and pressed his clean blade between the man's lips. "I hear tell," he drew out slowly, eyes boring into the broken man below him, "that you make a _mean_ batch of chemical fear."

Jonathan nodded frantically, crying out when his movement caused the knife to bite into the corners of his mouth.

"Shhh," The Joker soothed, but didn't remove his blade. "Let's make a deal."

Harley was finally beginning to slip out of her red haze, and was actually looking forward to watching the negotiations, when something slammed into her chest. For one suspended moment, she felt herself falling, heard a belated shout of, "Police!" and then everything went black.

* * *

A/N: Final part will be posted tomorrow!

Please Review!

Disclaimer: I own nothing.


	4. Astronaut

Astronaut

"_Is it getting harder to pretend that life goes on without you in the wake?_

_And can you see the means without the end, in the random frantic actions that we take?"_

…Pain ripped through her, a piercing, living thing that tore through her chest and whipped through her limbs. A cry bubbled out of her lips as she was jostled, and then she was floating…

* * *

…Something soft was under her now, but its pleasantness could hardly compare to the horrid feeling that was echoing throughout her. Something sharp was digging into her chest, ripping and pushing, only to be replaced by fingers that delved into her flesh, ripping and pulling. She wanted to cry out, to scream and rage and force the pain away, but she was having enough trouble just breathing…

* * *

…The pain dulled, or perhaps it had become so sharp that she could no longer feel it; either way, she was floating serenely on something soft. A hand whispered through her hair, not exactly gentle, but comforting all the same. Lips pressed to her chest, so close to where her pain had come from, but these lips were soft and curious. Her whole world focused on that single sensation, on the errant brushes of foreign flesh against her own; she nearly moaned when a tongue flicked out to taste her, but then the feeling was pulling away until all she had left was the lingering scent of toffee and gunpowder. And, in the absence of such unexpected pleasure, the pain closed in around her once more…

* * *

Harley woke up in the early morning light, gasping, a hand clutched to her chest.

She was alone, she realized as her senses slowly kicked in, alone and… in her bedroom? The curtains were shut tight and anything within the room had been displaced to the other side of the room—her clock was smashed against a wall, her nightstand was laying on its side in front of the door, and all her books had been tossed off their shelves—but it was still definitely her apartment. How had she gotten here? She remembered the gambling hall, the bomb, and Crane; after that she had a vague idea that the police had shown up and she'd been—_shot_!

Quickly, Harley pulled her had away from her chest, staring at the dried and congealing blood that stained her skin. Her shirt had been pulled off, leaving her in her bra, a nasty gash just above her right breast and the faint smudge of white makeup spread across her chest. The bullet had obviously been dug out of her flesh, but beyond that the wound had not been treated. It would leave a wicked scar behind, and she knew she'd be lucky if it didn't get infected.

Thinking along those lines, she stood up shakily—ignoring the large splotches of brownish-red that marred her bed sheets—and made her way to the bathroom. Her first-aid kit was small, but it had disinfectant and an emergency suture guide. The work was excruciating, awkward, and slow going, at best. Cleaning off the blood was painful enough, but taking a needle to her own flesh was something she had never wanted to experience. Honestly, if she hadn't been so paranoid about Commissioner Gordon, she would have gone straight to a hospital, instead.

What felt like hours later, she was bandaged—both her arm and her chest—free of paint, and wearing the comfiest pair of sweats she could lay her hands on as well as the gentlest shirt she could find. Her body was running on autopilot—woozy and a little disoriented from blood loss—and she wanted nothing more than to rest and think over what had happened last night. There was no respite to be had however, because there, on her carved up kitchen table, was another note.

The familiar, erratic, flourished script danced across the page. '_We're two of a kind, Harley. Both wanting to let go while we still can, and yet we're too wound up in our obsessions to be able to. I grabbed you when I should have just left you behind. And you… Well, I made my decision, now it's time for you to make yours.'_ She _had_ made her decision, hadn't she? Harley glared at the note for a moment. She'd gone with him willingly, and she had carved up Crane, just like Mr. J had asked her to! She had declared herself Harley Quinn—it didn't get much more decisive than that! Why was he still acting like she had a choice left?

'_You've tasted what life can be like if you're willing to live without rules. You can live your life in a cage, or you can live it with me. Come to the Rosenthal Plaza Hotel, if you're brave enough.'_

'_P.S.- Harleen Quinzel is: slightly malicious when she's cranky._' She almost smiled as she remembered what she had done to Crane, the pain she had caused him, and how _good_ it had felt to wield her knife.

Her mirth faded quickly though, and she was left with the desire to scream. The Joker had always been a calculating and brutal companion, so why was he offering her a way out now? Was this some sort of test, a way of gauging her progress or loyalty? Or was he acknowledging that they brought out the worst in each other—for him, an almost caring side, and for her, darkness and insanity.

She didn't have time to think it over though; her morning seemed to be bouncing from one event to the next. A knock had sounded at her door, and she had a pretty good idea of who it was. Pained, and the slightest bit panicked, Harley shoved The Joker's letter into her pocket, put on her best "vulnerable woman" face, and answered the door.

Commissioner Gordon stood on the other side, looking concerned and just a touch sad when her saw her leaning against the doorframe for support. "Are you alright, Doctor Quinzel?" he asked, placing a hand on her shoulder.

Harley winced and shuddered. He hadn't touched the wound, but the pressure on her shoulder made it feel like claws were ripping into her. "Dandy," she quipped quickly, shaking off Gordon's hand. "Why?"

He cleared his throat in a nervous fashion, but his dark eyes were trained on her in… suspicion? "You look a bit pale, that's all," he hedged, then frowned. "What happened to your hair?"

"I got a haircut," she replied plainly, absently running her hand through the erratic locks.

"With a hacksaw?" he asked disbelievingly.

"I happen to like it," she defended. "It's very… asymmetrical." Her patience was starting to wear thin, and the wound in her chest was throbbing uncomfortably. "Was there something you wanted, Commissioner?" she asked sharply.

He sighed wearily. "I'm going to have to take you in for questioning."

* * *

Harley felt she was becoming _much_ too familiar with the MCU. Once again, she was sitting in a depressing interrogation room, surrounded by tile and two-way mirrors, and Gordon was sitting across from her, a metal table between them. Only, this time, the Commissioner looked soul-weary and guilty, as though he'd failed her. And he had, in some sense; if Gotham hadn't been so corrupt, if Gordon had had a better unit to work with, maybe he would have been able to protect her from The Joker, maybe they wouldn't have been back in this room as interrogator and suspect. But, as things stood, he hadn't been able to save her, and that hurt him just as greatly as her life had been changed. And, even though the Commissioner had a lot of heart, he was still a shrewd man; it was going to be hard to get out of this if she wanted to get to Rosenthal Plaza before Mr. J gave up on her.

"What happened yesterday?" Gordon asked, setting a manila envelope on the table.

Two conflicting thoughts ran through her head, the first being to lie completely and the second being to only lie a little. The problem she was facing was that Daniel was a wild card; she had no idea what had happened to him after she'd been shot. If the police had found him, and he'd told them the truth, Gordon would know that she hadn't been kidnapped out of her apartment. He'd already had suspicions that she'd left on her own, anyway.

Her decision made, Harley called upon a tricky skill that she hadn't utilized in many years: she made herself cry. Tears gathered in her eyes and she sniffled pathetically, hoping she wasn't overdoing it. "I was so scared," she finally replied in the best lost-little-girl voice she could manage. "The Joker had gotten to me, even when I'd been under your protection. I though, maybe, if _no one_ knew where I was, neither would he, just like you originally suggested."

Gordon sighed and took a deep breath, but didn't chastise her. "Where did you go?"

"To Daniel's. I thought," she gave a quiet sob. "Well, he got me away from The Joker once, maybe he could do it again."

"And when I showed up at Doctor Marsch's?" he interjected. "Where did you go then?"

She pasted on a confused look through her tears; this was really pushing the limit of her acting skills, and she was still in a terrible amount of pain. "You were at Danny's?" she asked blankly. "When?"

Gordon abruptly switched tracks, pulling out a photograph. It was a fuzzy surveillance camera snapshot from across the street of the gambling den. Through the green-toned night vision, two figures could be seen: The Joker and a female companion. "Can you tell me who this is?" he asked, pointing to the woman.

Harley studied the picture intently. Her face was clearly visible in the shot but, covered as it was by paint, it was unrecognizable. The only thing that could connect her to the woman in the picture was her hair, but it was much tamer now than it had been the night before. "No," she replied, quieting her fake tears into watery sniffles. "Should I?"

The Commissioner looked unimpressed. "You were The Joker's doctor for longer than anyone else; you said so yourself," he pressed. "And in all that time, he never mentioned any companions, allies, or lovers?"

"He was very much involved in teaching his own philosophies," she said, trying to inject as much Harleen into that statement as she could. "He didn't seem to care much about anything else."

"And yet he pursued you," Gordon countered.

"I'm sorry, Commissioner," she frowned, "but what, exactly, are you implying?"

"I know about the Halloween party, Harleen," he said impatiently, "I was there. Thanks to the recording that I found at Doctor Marsch's, I know now that The Joker I saw that night was the real thing, and the woman he was kissing was you, wasn't it?" His words came out forcefully, accusingly. "Your relationship with him was unprofessional before you even became his doctor, and it allowed him affect you in ways that he hadn't been able to affect his previous doctors."

"What are you saying?" she asked again, giving up all pretenses of crying.

"What few eyewitnesses we have from last night said that the woman with The Joker called herself Harley Quinn." He shuffled through the envelope until he finally pulled out a small stack of transcripts; each reference to the name Harley had highlighted. "That was a name Joker gave you, you admitted as much the day before, and we have proof that he used that name for you during your sessions." He raised his eyebrows and folded his hand. "You're being stalked by The Joker, but disappear from police custody, not to be seen again until the next day. Then, during your absence, The Joker shows up for some murder and mayhem with a blonde woman who calls herself Harley Quinn—and you honestly expect me to believe that it wasn't you?"

She found herself at a sudden loss; she'd been neatly cornered.

"Dr. Marsch has already sworn his full cooperation," he stated mildly. "The odds are against you, Harleen. If you cooperate _now_, the consequences may not be so severe."

So they'd already gotten to Daniel, she thought bitterly, and now Gordon knew, he had proof enough to lock her away for her involvement with Mr. J, and if she _was_ locked up she'd never be able to get to Rosenthal Plaza. Panic closed in on her but, for once, fortune did her a favor. The heavy door buzzed open from the outside and a patrolman walked in to talk to the Commissioner. In hushed voices, the two officers turned away from her to have a heated conversation.

Gordon had _turned away_.

Steeling her nerves and ignoring the screaming pain in her chest, Harley prepared herself. She'd only have one chance to do this, and there would be no room for mistakes. As the patrolman turned to leave, she stood and, in one swift move, grabbed the back of her chair and swung it around until it whipped into the side of Gordon's head. The Commissioner blacked out immediately, and she quickly reached for his holstered weapon, ignoring the panicking officer and the small amount of blood that seeped into her shirt from her torn stitches.

"Put the gun-" the patrolman began to shout, but she neatly silenced him with a bullet between the eyes. Not even forty-eight hours ago she would have been horrified at how well she could use a gun, but right now she was simply thankful.

The door was open; freedom beckoned. Harley grabbed the weapon belt off the downed officer and dashed into the hall. Her interrogation room opened up into a depressing little corridor, with one interrogation room beside her and another two across the hall. Behind _them_ were likely entrances to the small rooms that hid behind the two-way glass of each interrogation room, but it didn't seem as though any of them were full. As a matter of fact, the hallway was chillingly empty, despite the fact that she'd just fired a gun. Perhaps that's what the patrolman had been telling Gordon—that something big had just happened in the city and all available officers were responding. If that was the case, she really hoped it wasn't Mr. J who'd done something; she would hate it if he started a party without her.

She was safe for the moment in this empty area, but she needed to find a way out of the MCU. "What would The Joker do?" she wondered aloud, and the answer came to her immediately: create chaos.

Carefully, she snuck from one room to the next, chilled and exhilarated when she realized that her guess had been right—the viewing rooms were empty, but the interrogation rooms already had people waiting to be questioned. Taking a chance, she opened one door after another, watching the confused criminals walk into the open.

"What's going on?" one of the three released men asked thickly.

Harley plucked a set of keys from her new belt and waved them in front of her. "I can get you out of those cuffs and, maybe, out of the building, but you have to help me."

"Why should we?" another one asked sullenly.

"Because those handcuffs aren't coming off, otherwise," she replied patronizingly, then trained Gordon's gun on him. "And if you waste much more of my time with your stupidity, _none_ of us will be getting out. So are you with me, or are you dead?"

They didn't seem to be following her logic very well, but they respected the power of a gun. Reluctantly, all three of them held out their bound wrists.

She eyed then skeptically as they all stood around, rubbing their chaffed skin; she didn't like her prospects. Oh sure, they could probably cause enough trouble for her to sneak over to the lock-up and release some _real_ mayhem, but… could she trust them with weapons? The sad fact was that they needed weapons to pose any threat to the police, but putting a loaded gun in one of their hands was like signing her own death warrant. She had no other choice, though. Her plan was slapdash, at best, and she didn't have to time to go looking for people she could trust. If she had any hope of getting out—and she could practically feel the police closing in on them—then she would have to make-do with what was available.

Harley pulled the small taser and the nightstick from her belt, and threw them at the boys' feet, not caring who picked up what. "You two," she pointed to the ones who had hassled her, "go out those doors on the far wall and cause as much trouble as you can."

They straightened up, both now armed, and gave her a calculating look but, to her surprise, did as she asked.

She pulled aside the remaining man—the only one who hadn't asked a stupid question—and handed him the patrolman's gun. "You shoot me in the back, and I guarantee you that I will survive long enough to return the favor," she warned him.

He smiled crookedly. "You're Harley Quinn, aren't you? The Boss talked about you a few times."

She was fairly certain that Mr. J never had long-term henchmen, and that he didn't tend to employ the quickest or the sanest thinkers, but the fact that this man had worked for The Joker put her at ease a bit. "Yeah," she replied, "I'm Harley."

He held the gun tightly in his hands, but gripped it with an ease that spoke of long familiarity. His eyes weren't exactly kind as he looked her over, and she was beginning to wonder if handing him a weapon had been a terrible mistake, but he smiled once more. Leaning close, he asked in a stage whisper, "Where to, Boss-Lady?"

In that moment, Harley realized that it wasn't respect shining in the man's eyes—not for her gun or anything she had done to release him—but devotional admiration. She hadn't even made a name for herself yet, and already the very idea of Harley Quinn carried some kind of clout. Was this the sort of emotion that master criminals inspired in people? Did he look at The Joker the same way? Had she really been changed so much that a man like this would see something in her worth following?

"Boss-Lady?" he questioned carefully, looking as though he wanted to shake her shoulder but wasn't sure if she would lash out at him for it.

She pushed the thoughts from her mind. Now was not the time to get caught up in the whirlwind events of her life; she had to stay ahead of the game if she had any hope of surviving. "This way," she finally replied, exiting through the closest set of doors. "We need to find the lock-up."

"Lock-up?" he asked confusedly. "I thought you wanted to get _out_, not in!"

"The station seems to be pretty quiet right now—I'm willing to bet that something big is going on in the city somewhere—but, even so, they'll have enough people to guard the exits," she shook her head, carefully ducking around corners whenever she thought someone was approaching. "Right now, it's easier to creep around the inside than it is to make a breakout. What we really need is to unleash a little mayhem so that we can slip out in all the chaos."

He stayed close beside her, but didn't bother to duck and dive like she did. "So those other two…?"

"Just a diversion," she shrugged. "I wanted them to buy us some time and divert the officers' attention enough that we could free the other prisoners with relative ease."

"Think it'll work?" He sounded more excited than nervous.

She shrugged again. "I have no idea, but we're about to find out." She pointed to a heavy-looking door just ahead of them. "There it is. Are you ready for this? I don't know how many police officers will be in there, so just start shooting. We'll worry about details later."

"I can see why the Boss likes you," he laughed, firing off a couple of rounds as soon as the door was open.

To say that bedlam erupted would have been a vast understatement. It wasn't that there were more guards than Harley had been expecting—because she really hadn't had the faintest clue as to how many could be waiting behind that door—but they were armed much better than she had thought they would be. She had assumed that they would all have handguns like Gordon and the officer she had taken down, and they did, but a few of them had rifles as well. Apparently, the MCU was very serious about detaining its prisoners.

Despite the fact that she'd started it, she was hesitant to join the fray. She had less than twenty-four hours of experience with a gun, and now she was going up against people who were armed heavier than she was, and she didn't have The Joker to guide her. Plus, she'd already been shot once; she had no desire for a repeat performance. Still, her partner was jumping into the thick of things with gusto, and he did need some kind of backup. Harley gripped her gun tightly and, using the door as cover, began to fire into the melee. She was careful not to aim near her partner, but she was inexperienced and the shouts of the guards and the prisoners were getting to her, so it wasn't an exact science. Up until that point, she had been rather lucky with guns, but now she simply found herself aiming in a general direction and pulling the trigger, not caring who it hit so long as it hit someone who wasn't playing for her team.

The fight stretched on for what felt like hours, but was probably only seconds; they only had a finite number of bullets, after all. The pop and retort of shots were beginning to thin out, the cheers from the prisoners were getting louder, and she and her partner were still standing. It seemed like her crazy idea was going to work out. Just as she thought that though, something whizzed past her head, leaving the scent of fireworks and burnt hair in its wake. She was about fire in return, revenge clear in her mind—_honestly, how many times was she going to be shot at in one day?_—but the man was already falling to the floor, clutching a bloody hole in his side.

"Sorry, Boss-Lady, he slipped by me," her partner apologized. "I'll take care of him and the stragglers, so why don't you try to work some magic on that control panel over there?"

Harley didn't really want to leave the dubious safety of the door she was using as a shield, but time was against them, and they needed to work quickly if they were to have a chance of breaking any prisoners out before more police officers arrived. Swallowing her nerves and her anger for continually being a bullet-magnet, she dashed from the doorway to the far wall. The control panel was a series of monitors and button, levers and key-swipes and, sadly, there were no handy operators' manuals in sight. A few more gunshots rang out behind her as she poked and prodded some likely looking buttons, praying that she wasn't about to set off any alarms.

A loud cheer erupted from the prisoners as her partner sidled up beside her. "Any idea how to work that thing?" he asked curiously.

"Nope," Harley replied, reloading her gun with an extra clip from her officer's belt. She didn't have the time to figure it out, either. The commotion was much too loud to be ignored; they were probably only seconds away from having to fight another volley of guards. "No idea," she murmured, firing three shots into an important-looking protrusion.

Something whirred and sparked deep within the panel, and a loud, mechanical grinding filled the room until, finally, with a deafening groan, the cell doors buzzed open. The was an awkward moment as the prisoners filed out of their cells, as though they weren't sure whether to riot or follow her lead.

"We're getting out," she said to the room at large. "Grab what you can, and go!" She turned to her partner, quietly asking, "You're going to cover me, right?"

He furrowed his brows. "Yeah… why?"

"These are experienced criminals," she nodded to the crowd of looting prisoners, "my gun could do more damage in their hands than it will in mine."

"You'd be defenseless, though," he argued.

She tossed her gun to the floor—hoping that someone proficient would pick it up—and shrugged. "I've got you," she explained. "I'm not looking for a bloodbath, hun; I just want _out_." She turned toward the door and started to walk out with the crowd. "Besides, I have better chances of being mistaken for an innocent bystander if I'm unarmed, and you could pretend to take me hostage if we get put into a tough situation."

He shook his head and stayed close beside her, a smile tugging at his lips. "We've never had a thinker in the operation before. The Joker must _really_ like you."

She laughed quietly to herself. "By the way," she began suddenly, carefully peeking around a corner in the corridor, "what's your name?"

He slowed his pace, letting the mass of prisoners get ahead of them. "Most people just call me Hyena."

"Why's that?" she wondered aloud.

He laughed then—long, loud, and in earnest—and damned if he didn't sound just like a hyena. It was an eerie, high-pitched, wailing laugh that had the hair at the back of her neck standing on end.

"Oh," she murmured plainly.

He flashed a smile as they rounded another corner.

Harley was just beginning to worry that things were going too smoothly when she ran headlong into someone. She had one clear, but thankfully brief, moment of panic, before she realized that she knew this person. The esteemed Doctor Marsch was looking down at her in horror, the side of his face bruised and his cinnamon colored hair disheveled. "Daniel," she purred venomously, "fancy meeting you here."

Hyena—who was either very good at reading subtext, or a much quicker thinker than she had given him credit for—grabbed Daniel by the collar and pressed a gun to his side. "Do you want me to take care of this guy, Boss-Lady?"

She stared into Danny's wide and panicking eyes, their chocolate depths pleading with her; she stared into the eyes of a friend, the eyes of a betrayer. He had helped her in what small ways he could, provided a solid presence to buffer The Joker's effect and had been an understanding and sympathetic friend. But he hadn't saved her—no one had saved her—and he was now willing to turn her in to Gordon. He was a friend, but not a foul-weather friend. He could hide her when she was in trouble, but not when she caused it. Did she need that kind of friend around? No, the real question was: could she watch a friend die?

"Harleen!" Daniel finally pleaded.

"We don't have time for this right now," she snapped, a hysterical note threading her voice. "Just bring him along," she told Hyena. "We need to get out of here first, then we can deal with him."

They edged down the hallway, passing bodies of the dead and dying, slowly making their way toward what Harley hoped was an exit. Guns fired in the distance, accompanied by panicked shouts and orders. So far, it sounded as though the prisoners were giving the police hell, which was exactly what she wanted. The trio's path had already been cleared by the mass of convicts ahead of them—convicts who were now earning the full attention of Gotham's finest. It was only a matter of time before they found a way out, a minimum amount of effort expended on gaining their immediate freedom.

"Well," Harley breathed a sigh of relief as they casually walked away from the rioting MCU building, "that went better than expected."

Hyena laughed quietly, thankfully careful not to draw too much attention to their already noticeable group. "You'll have bragging rights for weeks."

"_You_ planned that?" Daniel sputtered, horrified. "Harleen, what's happened to you?"

"Here," Hyena said suddenly, inconspicuously handing her his gun. "I'm gonna go find us a car." He let go of Daniel, murmuring, "You do whatever you need to with him," before he loped quickly out of sight.

"I suppose getting you out of Arkham wasn't nearly enough," Daniel mused after an uncomfortable pause. He eyed her from top to bottom, his gaze lingering on her bloodstained shirt and the gun in her hand. "The Joker still got to you, in the end. But it's not too late, Harleen," he offered softly. "You could still walk away from him."

"Yes, it is, Daniel," she barked, frustration clear in her voice. "I killed today in the same way that I turn off my kitchen light: without thinking, without caring. You don't walk away from a murder like that; it lives inside you, waiting to be free." A laugh bubbled from between her lips. "And, even if I could ignore that, I can't ignore _him_. It's like he's under my skin, Danny. I tried to get away, but Mr. J found me, and now," she paused, a little frightened of what she was saying. "I don't think I could live without him."

He shuddered, pity clear in his eyes. "Turn yourself in," he suggested. "He's played you for a fool, but if you turned yourself in, you could get the help you need."

"Like The Joker did?" she asked sarcastically. "There are some things that just can't be changed; I get that now. Everything we did to him only fueled the fire; the more we tried to teach him how to be a normal person, the harder he clung to his ideals." She shook her head. "If you lock me away, Danny, it will only make me darker, more brutal; it will only make me worse."

"Your luck will run out one day, Harleen," Daniel warned, drawing closer to her. "You'll be back here at the MCU sooner or later, and on that day The Joker won't save you; he doesn't care for anyone but himself. What kind of future is that?"

Harley smiled at his naiveté. "You're wrong," she said firmly. "He doesn't care about himself at all. The only thing that keeps The Joker moving forward is _entertainment_. So long as I stay interesting, he'll always come back for me."

"So you're going to join forces with him?" he snapped.

"I'm just taking some advice," she shrugged. "He told me, 'Put your scars on display for the whole world to see,' so I am. Why should I hide what was done to me; why should I hide what I was turned into while no one was looking?"

He sighed heavily. "It wasn't supposed to happen like this, Harleen. I was supposed to save you from him."

"It's too late for that." She paused for a moment. "Maybe it was too late before you and I even met. I think that I might have been a lost cause the moment The Joker and I locked eyes across the dance floor."

"You won't change you mind?" he asked, but there was a resigned note in his voice—he knew how she was going to answer, but his innate sense of optimism forced him to ask the question.

She shook her head as Hyena pulled up in a battered-looking car. "No," she replied firmly.

"Then what happens now?" Daniel countered. "Are you going to shoot me?"

"I should," she said quietly. "I know I should." It was the absolute truth; Daniel had caused her a great deal of trouble. She should kill him, if for no other reason than simple revenge. But a small part of her was still thankful for the support he had offered to Harleen, back when it had mattered. She couldn't repay that favor with a bullet, not today at least. Shoulders slumping, she sighed. "But it's been a hell of a day, and I'm feeling a little sentimental, so I'll let you go." She turned the car.

"What should I do now?" Daniel asked from behind her, sounding lost.

Harley turned back around, fished out a cell phone she had accidentally grabbed along with the officer's belt, and tossed it to the man. "You could call the police," she suggested snidely. "I hear you're pretty good at that. They might be a bit busy at the moment though."

* * *

Harley was fighting the clock and it made her nervous; she didn't know how long Mr. J would wait for her—for all she knew, he could have given up on her hours ago. Urgency burned through her like fire, but she had Hyena stop at her apartment anyway. Harley had no idea how long Gordon would stay unconscious, but she had a pretty good idea that her apartment was going to become a police hotbed as soon as he woke up, and she wanted to get her knife back before that happened.

So it was roughly half an hour after she had broken out of jail that Harley found herself—a fresh bandage hastily slapped across her chest, wearing the dusty clothes The Joker had given her the night before, and nervously fingering the knife that laid in her pocket—standing before the massive Rosenthal Plaza Hotel.

If she'd thought the outside seemed intimidating, it was nothing compared to the inside. The lobby of the hotel was grand in every sense of the word. Marble floors gleamed silver and gold under the light of the cut-crystal chandeliers, while the wood-paneled walls glowed a warm cherry-red. The lobby was expansive, too; high ceilings vaulted above the crowd of people, opening onto second and third story terraces. Even the numerous clusters of large and expensive-looking furniture didn't detract from the sheer and overwhelming openness of Rosenthal Plaza.

Hyena left her side almost immediately, disappearing into the crowd with a cheeky grin. Harley felt more nervous and alone than ever; she stood out like a sore thumb among the pretentious and wealthy businessmen that surrounded her—she was a frazzled mess and she knew it. When—_if_—she found Mr. J, it wouldn't matter so much; the rest of the world seemed to vanish when she was with him. But she had to find him first, assuming he was still waiting for her, and until then she would continue to feel like a third-grader who had stumbled into high school.

With a sigh and a heavy swallow, Harley ignored the looks she was garnering and quietly made her way around the lobby. Trouble was, she didn't entirely know what she was looking for. The Joker would stand out worse than she was, so he couldn't be in plain sight, if he was there at all. Was he hiding behind a shadowy pillar, or was he waiting in a room above? A frenetic energy filled her as she searched, desperation burning her. She couldn't leave without talking to Mr. J; ever since she'd read his note, she'd had but one goal in mind, and she couldn't fall short of the mark now, not after she'd done so much to get here!

She was just passing a trio of seated businessmen—two of them chatting idly, while the third read a newspaper—when one of them snatched her wrist in an iron grip, yanking until she landed in the lap of the reading gentlemen. Shouts and screams rang out around them as the newspaper lowered until she was looking into the grimly amused face of The Joker.

She quirked an eyebrow, desperation and nervousness gone now that she knew he'd waited for her. "You hid behind a newspaper, and _no one_ noticed?" she asked on a laugh.

"It's Gotham," he shrugged, a smile tugging his own lips. "You can't honestly tell me that you're surprised."

The screaming echoed louder, bouncing and reverberating off the marble floors until it sounded as though there were hundreds of panicking people, rather than dozens. Harley frowned and began to get to her feet. "Should we really stay out in the open like this?"

Mr. J tugged her back down, a heavy arm encircling her waist. "Let the boys handle it," he replied, gesturing to the clown masks that were suddenly popping out of the crowd. "You and I need to talk."

She settled against him, reveling in the feel of him surrounding her. They hadn't been this close since Halloween, and just like then she was thrilled and a little frightened by the strength of him wrapped so tightly around her. "I came, didn't I?" she shrugged. "What more needs to be said?"

"Who are you?" he asked teasingly. He threaded his unusually gloveless hands through her hair, playing as he explained, "Halloween was the beginning, the tiniest sip of what Harley Quinn could be, and last night was a longer preview, but still _just_ a preview. So who came here today, Harley or Harleen?"

"I'm inclined to say Harley," she replied lightly. "I broke out jail today, you know, just so I wouldn't miss our date."

"Committable and committed," he sighed longingly. "It's such a heady combination. Still, I think Doctor Quinzel might be lurking in those eyes of yours."

She was silent for a moment; she couldn't entirely refuse what he was saying. While it was true that she'd done some wicked things over the past few hours that would leave her forever changed, she couldn't deny the fact that a part of her was still very much the doctor—still knew that what she was turning into was wrong. She still had a conscience, and that was of no use to someone like The Joker.

His dark eyes pinned her as her silence stretched out.

"Doctor Quinzel might always be there," she said slowly, trying to find the right words. "When you're around, or reminders of you are near, nothing else matters to me, but when you're gone…"

"But I'm never really gone anymore," he replied smoothly. "Every time you look in the mirror, I'm there. Whether it's you clothes, your knife, your hair, or this little thing," one of his hands drifted down to ghost over the wound on her chest, "that's going to scar so beautifully, I'm always with you now." His hands delved back into her hair, pulling her close. "But the choice is ultimately yours, sugar-lips. You have to _want_ to change; you have to _want_ to be Harley Quinn."

"Why is it," she growled close to his lips, "that you push and you push and then, once it's long past any opportunity to turn back around, you give me the pretense of being able to leave? Don't lie to me, Joker," she snarled, finally letting loose a temper that she had been forced to hold in for far too long. "Don't give me the pretty, but empty words you'd give a hostage. There's two of us now, and you know it."

"So eloquent," he laughed. "You really are a woman after my own heart." A questioning look suddenly lit up his face, and his hands paused in her hair. "What happened here?" he asked, examining a section of blonde curl that seemed more burnt off than sheered.

"I told you, I had to break out of jail to get here, and I was shot at," she pouted, petulantly adding, "_again_."

"Hm," he hummed, sounding more impressed that she'd dodged the bullet than concerned that she'd once more been inches from death.

"I'm going to get shot at a lot, aren't I?" she hazarded a guess.

He didn't answer—though, truthfully, what could he have said after she'd just warned him not to lie to her—which only made Harley grimace. She knew there would be a lot of difficulties facing her in her new life, but she doubted she would ever get over the irritation of being shot at.

"Shall we get this party started, then?" he asked after a pause. "The crowd is getting wonderfully anxious."

"That reminds me," she said, confusion furrowing her brows. "What were you doing at the Halloween party that night? I've thought back on it countless times, but I've never been able to figure out why you were there."

"I was considering what to do next. Scaring everyone is all well and good, but you always need to know what you're next big step is going to be; you have to know where to hit them to cause the most pain," he shrugged, an arm going back around her waist. "With Dent gone, Gotham's hope was stifled, but not shattered like it should have been. I needed something bigger, something better, something that Batman and the police wouldn't see coming and wouldn't be able to stop."

She swallowed thickly. "And did you get it?"

"Oh, yes," he pulled her closer, until they were nearly nose to nose, "I got it."

"Why me?" she asked, sounding lost. Out of everyone who had been there that night, the celebrities and high class of Gotham, he had picked her.

"Why not you?" he returned readily. "You stood out like a sore thumb at that party: the sweet and innocent little girl who was sick of everything around her. You were tired of playing by their rules, it was right there in the way you dressed that night." He paused, then laughed, "Not to mention, you seemed predisposed to my way of thinking. You want to be free, and you want to have fun. Was I wrong in picking you?"

She shook her head. "But I'm not a public figure like Dent was; I'm not a symbol to Gotham." And The Joker rarely did anything that wasn't grand in scale. Had he simply settled for her because she'd been available? That thought left an unpleasant tightness in her chest.

"Aren't you?" His eyebrows rose, and he continued mockingly, "The kindly doctor who spends her life trying to reform others—you may not have been well known, but you were trying to make this city a better place. Just like Harvey Dent," he added ominously. "And what happened to you—the average citizen who was trying to make a difference?"

"I got trapped," she replied, mesmerized by his strangely pitched voice.

"Just like they'll be," he nodded with a smile. "There's two of us now, Harley, as you so aptly pointed out earlier; two of us who got chewed up by the world. Gotham won't know how to deal with the consequences of its ignorance and apathy. Without someone like Dent to lead them, they barely even know which way is up; we could burn this whole city down, you and I, and no one will know how to stop us."

It was such a tantalizing image, to live freely and wildly with someone like him. What did it matter how they'd come together? Now that she was by his side, she knew she would never leave it by choice. Months of running and lying melted away with the sudden certainty that this was exactly where she was supposed to be. "So, about this party…?" she trailed, an impish grin blooming over her lips.

He grinned in response, but a commotion near the doors diverted his attention.

Surrounded by a circle of clown-masked men with rifles, stood a man drenched from head to toe in black. He painted a bold picture: tight armor spread over an obviously well muscled form, but what really drew the eyes of on-lookers was the strange-resemblance-to-a-bat cowl he sported. It was The Batman. As a doctor, Harleen had been clinically interested in the man—what sort of person would be compelled to take on such an image?—but as an unbalanced victim of The Joker's machinations, Harley was annoyed and worried at his presence.

"He's going to spoil our fun, isn't he?" she asked Mr. J as he slowly set her on her feet and stood from his chair.

But he just cocked his head to the side and smiled until his face seemed split in two. "Sometimes, Harl, he _is_ the fun."

She contemplated that as Mr. J slowly made his way over to the fight. As she stood on the sidelines, watching the manic glee that crossed The Joker's face as he went hand-to-hand with the dark vigilante, Harley had to admit that she didn't quite understand it. Batman was stodgy, too firmly set in his views, and was forever trying to "clean up Gotham"—as though any one could. What could _possibly_ make him fun?

"Help us," a warm, desperate voice interrupted her thoughts.

Harley turned her head from the fight, noting for the first time that a delicate brunette in her early thirties had approached her. The woman was a nymphish creature, sweetly rounded and dressed in luxury. She was either a very important woman, or a very expensive call-girl, Harley decided. "Why not put your faith in Batman?" she asked, turning back to watch Mr. J. "_He's_ the one fighting for you."

"The Batman is an outlaw," the nymph replied plainly. "And… maybe you are too, but you were talking to The Joker earlier. He'd listen to you if you asked him to stop."

Harley turned back around to face the woman, raising an eyebrow as she did. "There are two problems with what you just said." She took a menacing step forward. "The first is that The Joker rarely changes his mind once he's decided on something."

"And the other?" the woman asked, taking a step back.

Harley swooped forward until she was close enough to whisper in the nymph's ear. "What makes you think I care?"

The brunette swallowed nervously at Harley's sudden nearness but, to her credit, she did not back away. "Look at all the lives you could save," she gestured around them, at the frozen and panicked people who littered the lobby. "You look like a smart woman to me, so why would you throw your lot in with these criminals?"

"Don't," Harley snarled, her hands whipping out to grab the woman roughly by the shoulders. "Don't you _dare_ try to cozy up to me," she shook her harshly. "My life has been spiraling out of control since the moment I met The Joker, each minute darker than the last." Her voice was rising with every word, but she continued on. "I tried running at first, but people like Mr. J… they find you, no matter where you go. And once I was too tired to run anymore, there he was, waiting for me, ready to teach how to be a monster. And do you know what? _I enjoyed it,_" she laughed hysterically.

The nymph looked decidedly shaken, fear shining in her eyes. "But," she began.

"So don't try to tell me," Harley interrupted her, "that this one little act of heroism will make everything better." She pushed the brunette away with a sneer.

The woman stumbled for moment, then caught herself. "You can stop this!" she persisted, as though she hadn't listened to Harley at all.

"No, I can't," Harley laughed, shaking her head. She paused at the woman's blank look. "You don't get it, do you?" she sighed. "Even if I did care, The Joker would still do whatever he wanted to; the fact that I'm here is just a bonus to him. He can't be stopped by pleas and petty words; they're just music to him, all part of his chaotic symphony."

"But," the woman trembled, "you could talk to him, at least!"

"Have you not been listening?" Harley asked, an incredulous frown pushing at her brows. "He can't be reasoned with, because there's nothing that he wants—not money or jewels or political clout—just chaos. He doesn't have plans, because that would insinuate that something could go wrong. He just does things for the fun of it, for the curiosity of seeing what will happen." She stepped close to the woman once more. "If I asked him right now to spare all of you, do you know what he would do?"

The nymph swallowed, her eyes glassy bright. "Kill you?"

She chuckled. "He would laugh, shake his head, and tell me, 'Idealism doesn't become you, Harley,' and then he would kill _someone else_." She leveled a pointed stare at the woman. "Maybe you." A stark, naked joy filled Harley as she watched the trembling woman quickly disappear back into the crowd.

_Now_ she understood; she knew how Mr. J could consider someone like Batman entertaining. Antagonizing them, watching them hope and struggle for good, only to be caught in the mad delirium of a wicked plot was an absolute thrill. She turned back to the fight, watching it with new eyes. There was a strange element of love and hate that she hadn't noticed before. The Joker certainly wasn't pulling any punches and, at times, he seemed genuinely furious with Batman, but every time the masked vigilante landed a good blow, The Joker would howl with laughter, as though he savored the proof of how much he had frustrated and instilled hatred into Batman. From where she was standing it seemed as though Batman's anger burned just as brightly as Mr. J's smile; it seemed as though they were almost too evenly matched, as though their fight could go on forever.

But, just as she thought that, something skittered across the floor and hit her booted foot. Harley looked down to see a small, blinking detonator. It had slipped out of Mr. J's pocket and Batman had unwittingly kicked it to her. "How convenient," she murmured with a smile, bending to pick it up.

The detonator was a heavy weight in her hand, and on her soul. It was a hodgepodge device, made out of bits from remotes, phones, and radios, and it was absolutely begging her to turn its key and flip the switch. But what would happen if she did? Had Mr. J planted a bomb somewhere and, if he had, where? She didn't fancy the thought of blowing herself because she hadn't known where to stand. More than that though, did she have the courage to flip the switch, to become what Mr. J wanted her to be?

A flash of something red caught her eye, making her tilt the detonator until she could examine it properly. Along the side of the device, painted in small red letters was a message. '_Harleen Quinzel is: dead._'

She held her breath for a moment while she thought about it. It was true; Harleen was dead, destroyed beyond any doubt in the flash of gunpowder that had killed the officer in her interrogation room. She would have twinges on conscience every once in a while, she was new to this criminal business after all and whenever Mr. J wasn't around she tended to relapse, but the truth of the matter was that Harley was all she had now. There was no room left in the world for Harleen Quinzel.

Resolutely, Harley Quinn triggered the detonator.

For a suspended moment, nothing seemed to happen, then a luggage cart on the other side of the lobby split open, sending a thick cloud of… something into the crowd. Panicked shouts became hysterical as the people closest to the cloud began to cough and claw at their faces, some even dropped to the ground in shivering sobs, and a few began to scream and jibber nonsense. Fear Toxin, Harley realized after a moment; The Joker had rigged up an explosion of Crane's Fear Toxin. And, even though only a small number of people had been affected by the airborne drug, their delirious reactions sent ripples of terror through others, spreading across the lobby until it seemed she was lost in a sea of screams. A smile stretched her lips; true to form, The Joker had taken something small and turned it into something terrible. He had used a tiny batch of chemical fear to inspire _real_ fear, and no one had been able to stop it.

A black-clad hand closed over her own, yanking the detonator away.

Harley turned around, coming face-to-face with The Batman. He was winded from his fight with Mr. J, but no less menacing for it, and right now he was staring down at her in a mixture of anger and confusion. "Why did you do it?" he asked, his voice absurdly deep and gravelly, as though he had recently choked on something.

"The question isn't 'why'," she replied calmly. "I spent my whole life asking that, and it got me nowhere. But Mr. J showed me the real way of things." She paused, letting a smile bloom over her lips. "I've realized that it isn't 'why', Batman; it's 'why not'."

He made a disgusted sound low in his throat as The Joker laughed loudly from behind them, but he continued to stare at her in disbelief.

"You'd better hurry if you want to save all these people from themselves, Batsy," she taunted. "That man over there looks pretty serious about his gun; who knows what he might do if he gets any more spooked?"

He looked torn, his body already turning to dive into the crowd, and yet he didn't move right away, as though he wasn't sure what was more important: preventing a full-blown riot or facing the people who had caused the trouble in the first place. "You'll answer for this sooner or later," he growled, then swept into the chaos like a dark avenger.

"He's a tad dramatic for my tastes," Harley said as The Joker wrapped his arms around her from behind.

"He'll get used to you in time," Mr. J replied mock-seriously. "A few stand-offs from now, he won't even remember what Gotham was like before you showed up."

She watched the lobby descend into insanity, grimly amused by the scenes playing out before her. "So what happens now?" she asked.

He nipped at her ear before drawing her to a clown-guarded exit. "Anything we want," he replied with a purr.

* * *

A/N: This story was influenced by a lot of things, but one I really must tip my hat to is the album Along Came A Spider, by Alice Cooper. Some pretty twisted music helped me write this story (especially The Dark Knight soundtrack), but Along Came A Spider made my imagination soar.

Props go to my friend Metanaito-sama for looking over this story (multiple times), and the previous one as well, and for contributing wonderful ideas when I got stuck. She practically co-authored the last fourth of the story. And, Metanaito-sama, words can not express how much I appreciated your help, especially when a lot of it was logistical silliness that wasn't actually being put in the story. We might have seriously disturbed everyone around us, but those long conversations really took this story from a vague idea, and turned it into a saga. Thanks, sweetheart!

I was thinking about writing a continuation for this, turning out a trilogy I suppose, but I'm left at a point where I don't think it's necessary. The story continues on, of course—Harley and The Joker are the dynamic duo of the underworld, after all—but I think the story of how Harleen Quinzel became Harley Quinn has come to a close. I may write other stories that are related, but probably not a direct continuation.

Disclaimer: As with the last story, this one was named after a Raconteurs song. The second and third "chapters" were titled after songs from Alice Cooper's: Along Came A Spider, while the fourth one was titled after a song from Amanda Palmer's: Who Killed Amanda Palmer. I do not own any of them, nor do I own anything that came from any of the incarnations of Batman. In all seriousness, I think the only thing I really came up with on my own was Daniel Marsch and, let's be honest, that's not something to brag about. Also, Hyena is a blatant hat-tip to Bud and Lou, Harley's pet hyenas in The Animated Series.


End file.
